Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

January 2008–July 2009

University of New South Wales Journalism and Media Research Centre and Media Monitors joint research for the Australian Sports Commission

Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media January 2008–July 2009

Principal researchers: • Professor Catharine Lumby, Director, Journalism and Media Research Centre, University of New South Wales • Dr Helen Caple, Research Associate, Journalism and Media Research Centre, University of New South Wales • Dr Kate Greenwood, Senior Portfolio Analyst, Media Monitors ii Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Acknowledgments

Many people assisted in the production of this research. Thank you to Dr Petra Nolan for providing excellent assistance in the project management and editing of the Journalism and Media Research Centre section of the report, and Ciara Ward for her care in editing the Media Monitors sections of the fi nal document. A signifi cant debt of gratitude is owed to Hope Clutterham and Carly Logan at Media Monitors for their invaluable input into the conception and execution, respectively, of Sections Two to Five. Particular acknowledgment goes to Sareh Aminian for her contribution to Section Two, David Vallence for outstanding work on Section Four, and Iain Wright and Peter Prior for Section Five. Special thanks to Peter Hannagan, Bill Hawker, Dayne Smith and Ilse Steyn for their painstaking research assistance, and Lilla Smee for her excellent data analysis.

The Australian Sports Commission is the Australian Government agency that manages, develops and invests in sport at all levels. It was established in 1985 and operates under the Australian Sports Commission Act 1989. The Commission’s national leadership role is achieved through the six operational areas: the Australian Institute of Sport, Sport Performance and Development, Community Sport, Corporate Services, Commercial and Facilities, and Finance. The Australian Sports Commission forms part of the Health and Ageing portfolio.

For general enquiries: Tel: (02) 6214 1111 Fax: (02) 6251 2680 Email: [email protected] Website: ausport.gov.au

© Australian Sports Commission 2010

This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced by any process without prior written permission from the Australian Sports Commission. Requests and enquiries concerning reproduction should be emailed to [email protected]

ISBN 978 1 74013 108 7

Unless otherwise specifi ed, all images are the property of the Australian Sports Commission. CONTENTS iii

Contents

Executive summary ...... v

Introduction ...... vii

Section One: Quantitative fi gures and qualitative media analysis of press coverage, 25 November–8 December 2008 ...... 1

Volume of stories by publication date ...... 2

Media format, publication date and publication type ...... 2

Volume of stories by publication type ...... 2

Publication type ...... 3

Analysis according to sport ...... 5

Qualitative fi ndings: media coverage, sport and gender ...... 6

The state of media game: stakeholder interviews ...... 16

Section Two: Qualitative and quantitative media analysis, October 2008–July 2009 ...... 19

Key metrics ...... 20

Gender overview ...... 20

Share of voice ...... 21

Story order ...... 22

Primary story focus ...... 24

Nationality of athletes ...... 24

Text type ...... 25

Narrative frame ...... 25

Visual analysis — studio backdrop ...... 27

Linguistic analysis — studio introduction ...... 29

Visual analysis — overall ...... 33

Linguistic analysis — overall ...... 36

Leading issues ...... 40

Leading messages ...... 43

Leading spokespeople ...... 44

Leading media ...... 46

Leading by-lines and comperes...... 46

Placement ...... 48

Trend analysis ...... 48 iv Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Section Three: Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Beijing Olympic Games, August 2008 .....51

Key metrics ...... 52

Gender overview ...... 52

Share of voice ...... 53

Primary story focus ...... 53

Nationality of athletes ...... 54

Text type ...... 54

Narrative frame ...... 54

Visual analysis — studio backdrop ...... 55

Linguistic analysis — studio introduction ...... 56

Visual analysis — overall ...... 60

Linguistic analysis — overall ...... 62

Leading issues ...... 66

Leading messages ...... 68

Leading spokespeople ...... 69

Leading media ...... 70

Leading by-lines and comperes...... 72

Placement ...... 72

Trend analysis ...... 73

Section Four: Quantitative media analysis, January–December 2008 ...... 75

Key fi ndings ...... 76

Share of voice ...... 76

Media type ...... 77

State breakdown ...... 78

Leading media ...... 81

Leading by-lines ...... 84

Leading radio comperes ...... 85

Leading television comperes...... 86

Section Five: Quantitative analysis of non-news television coverage, January–December 2008 ...... 87

Key fi ndings ...... 88

Competitor comparison ...... 89

Share of voice ...... 90

Audience demographics ...... 92

Leading stations ...... 92

Leading sports by competitor ...... 93

Leading sports by station ...... 97

Appendix A: CARMA® methodology ...... 109

References...... 111 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY v

Executive summary

The promotion of women in sport has been identifi ed by received more air time than women’s sport in the Australian Government as a key focus area for the Australian television news (see Section Two, Table 38). future development of sport in Australia. The Australian • The relatively low volume of reporting and comparatively Sports Commission (ASC), through its Women and Sport low duration of air time given to female sport when unit, is working towards achieving greater recognition of compared to women’s success and participation rates women’s sport and female athletes in the media, and implicitly give male sports more signifi cance than female improving leadership opportunities. sports in Australian television. The Commission engaged the Journalism and Media • The ABC’s above-average representation of women in Research Centre at the University of NSW and Media sport should be noted: female sport was the focus Monitors Pty Ltd to undertake research that would of 11% of television news coverage on ABC1 Sydney provide a broad and rich picture of how much coverage and Melbourne (see Table 1), while in non-news there is of women’s sport and female athletes in radio, programming in the Sydney market, ABC1 and ABC2 television and print media relative to the coverage of were the only stations with more female sport than male sport, male athletes and mixed sport. The research male sport coverage by duration (see Section Five, also focused on how women’s sport and female athletes charts 112 and 113). In television news coverage, are portrayed: whether female athletes are routinely Channel Nine Sydney and Channel Ten Melbourne stereotyped, sexualised or trivialised in the media, and were at the lower end of the spectrum, with 6% of all how they are depicted relative to male athletes. sports coverage on these stations devoted to female sport (see Section Two, Chart 40). Key fi ndings Tone and theme of coverage Volume of media • Despite the extreme disparity in the amount of focus on male and female sport across all media surveyed, Towards a Level Playing Field: Sport and gender in it is important to note that the tone and content of Australian media confi rms that female sport and reports on female athletes and female sport have male sport receive starkly disproportionate amounts markedly improved when compared to previous of coverage on Australian television, despite the studies. In the print and television commentary ongoing successes and strong participation levels of and reporting, analysed in depth in this research, women in sport: there was a remarkable absence of stereotyping • Coverage of women in sport made up 9% of all sports of female athletes. They were very rarely portrayed coverage in Australian television news media, while in a sexual way and most frequently portrayed as 7% of non-news programming content on television competitive and successful. Glamourised shots of was devoted to female sport. Male sport, on the female athletes (for example, the swimmer Stephanie other hand, occupied 81% of television news Rice) were concentrated in entertainment media and reporting, and 86% of non-news programming on were balanced by equally glamourised shots of male television (see Section Five, Chart 105). athletes (for example, cricketer Michael Clarke).

• Television news reports on female sport had the • Coverage of female sport was more favourable than lowest average duration of all the types of sport coverage of male sport, both in year-round coverage analysed, with reports on male sport having an and reporting on the Olympics. This can largely be average duration of 30 seconds longer than reports attributed to unfavourable coverage focusing on on female sport. To put this into context, horseracing the behaviour of some male athletes in year-round coverage, and the media’s presentation of female

Table 1: Television news coverage of Australian sport by sport type (per cent) Gender Overall ABC1 SBS Channel 7 Channel Nine Channel Ten Male sport 81.1 80.7 84.8 81.4 78.9 80.9 Female sport 8.7 11.2 8.9 7.8 7.4 8.6 Other 7.4 5.1 3.5 8.6 9.4 7.9 Mixed sport 2.8 3.0 2.7 2.2 4.2 2.6 vi Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Olympians as more successful (or at least, less Coverage during the Olympics unsuccessful) than their male counterparts. However, • The analysis of television news coverage of the the comparatively favourable tone of media coverage Olympics shows coverage of the Games to be an of women’s sport is a double-edged sword, as it example of how equal year-round sporting coverage also refl ects the fact that female athletes need to could be, quantitatively and qualitatively. Unlike year- win in order to secure media coverage, whereas round coverage of sport, the two genders received male athletes tend to be discussed in media an equal proportion of time in television coverage, coverage regardless of their success. Although the and women were more likely to be discussed in media presented some male sport unfavourably, contexts beyond simply results (such as training and it should be noted that the media’s interest in the preparation, and in a sporting industry context). questionable behaviour of some male athletes, both on and off the fi eld, stems from an acknowledgment of them as sporting professionals (and therefore Range of coverage role models) in a way that was not as apparent in • The range of female sports mentioned in television coverage of female athletes. news coverage was comparatively narrow, and • Reinforcing the male dominance of sporting culture in primarily extended to the individual sports of tennis Australia, in both coverage of the Olympics and year- (where women were discussed almost as frequently round television news reporting on sport, the media as men), surfi ng, cycling and golf, as well as the is more likely to present men as having something team-based sport of netball. The research confi rms interesting to say about sport than women (male that, in non-news programming, tennis had the most sport, female sport or the administrative side of equal gender split in terms of both participants and sport). Furthermore, the proportion of men speaking audiences. This is unsurprising given the expense of about female sport was in both cases greater than team sports and the infrastructure they require, both the proportion of female spokespeople quoted of which are more readily available for male sports, discussing male sport. given the core male audience for sport. Individual sports can subsist on the talent of few individuals • Gender stereotyping in press and television coverage which, when proven, can lead to sponsorship and of women’s sport was minimal; in fact, coverage other forms of funding. of sport in Australia would appear to challenge key aspects of both male and female gender Journalists reporting on female sport stereotypes. Female athletes were more often presented as actively pursuing their goals, as driven • 250 television journalists reported on male sport, and ambitious (thereby challenging the stereotype while only 82 journalists reported on female sport. of women as passive); meanwhile, analysis of This is, in part, a refl ection of the fact that male television news reporting showed that male athletes sport tends to more readily spill over into the main were more frequently described or depicted as news section of an evening news report, as opposed displaying negative emotions, such as sadness and to being confi ned to the sports section. It also disappointment (thereby challenging the stereotype refl ects that more journalists are better equipped that females are more prone to emotional displays, and commissioned to report on male sport. While while males are more stoic). individual stations have clear specialists on male sport (for example, Channel Nine’s Danny Weidler • While gender-based stereotypes in news reporting on can be expected to report on rugby league, and sport were rare, sport in Australia was represented ABC1’s Duncan Huntsdale can be relied on to as a traditionally male culture that draws on a rich report on cricket), there are fewer journalists spectrum of narratives, with female sport as its who are ‘specialists’ on female sports, with the less-complex, more-novel other. Television news attendant historical and statistical knowledge such coverage of male athletes was multi-faceted, in that specialisation brings. it was subject to more consistent levels of reporting year round, with journalists and networks exhibiting a more sustained interest in the activities of male Find out more athletes between games, and even between seasons. Coverage of female athletes was comparatively one- For more information, or to access the full Towards a dimensional, in that it was largely event-driven and Level Playing Field: Sport and gender in Australian media confi ned to the reporting of results. Male athletes report, visit ausport.gov.au/information or contact were more often framed domestically (for example, the Women and Sport unit at the Australian Sports pictured with their families) or as subjects of Commission (email: [email protected]). discipline, and male sport was much more likely to be discussed as a professional industry. INTRODUCTION vii

Introduction

Background These sections include visual as well as textual analyses and a full explanation of the methods of The Australian Sports Commission (ASC), through the coding and analysis, to ensure that future studies in the Women and Sport unit, is working towards achieving area can be benchmarked against this report. greater recognition of women’s sport and female athletes in the media, and improving leadership The research was done by two organisations — the opportunities for women. The promotion of women in JMRC at UNSW and Media Monitors — and divided sport has been identifi ed by the Australian Government on the basis of relevant expertise and infrastructure. as a key focus area for the future development of sport Cognate methodologies were used and the key in Australia. researchers from each organisation collaborated on this fi nal report. Section One was conducted by the JMRC The 2006 Senate Estimates Committee inquiry into at UNSW, and lays out the qualitative methodology that women in sport and recreation in Australia reported that Sections Two and Three follow. Section One covers a ‘[t]he committee is disappointed at the continuing poor two-week period from 25 November to 8 December coverage of women’s sport by all media … and the 2008. Quantitative fi gures are provided for all media committee suggests that the ASC undertake an types and in-depth qualitative analysis was conducted annual survey of coverage of women’s sports’. The on press coverage. Sections Two and Three, which were inquiry recommended ‘that the government fund the conducted by Media Monitors, complement and extend Australian Sports Commission to replicate in 2008–09 on Section One by focusing on television coverage the surveys and analysis performed in the 1996 report and analysing male sport as a reference point to An Illusory Image’. compare the volume, proportion and qualitative tone of Following this recommendation, the ASC commissioned coverage of female sport. Section Four provides top-line the Journalism and Media Research Centre (JMRC) at quantitative analysis across press, radio and television the University of New South Wales (UNSW) and Media for the 2008 calendar year, while Section Five provides Monitors to undertake qualitative research and identify quantitative details of the volume and proportion of new initiatives to address the promotion of women’s non-news sports broadcasting on television in Australia, sport, particularly in the media. The research project and the audiences watching this content. presented here is the fi rst study commissioned by Sections One to Three fi nd that there has been a the ASC since the 1996 study. It extends and refi nes notable improvement in the tone, scope and balance the methodology used in the 1996 study in line with of media coverage of female athletes and women contemporary scholarly approaches and industry best in sport since the 1996 study commissioned by the practice in the fi elds of media studies and media ASC. Improvements noted include a stronger focus on content analysis. women’s athleticism and performance on the fi eld, The 1996 report focused on the percentage of media a general absence of gender stereotyping in reporting, coverage of female sport versus male sport and was and coverage of a wider range of sports associated largely quantitative in its analysis. No raw fi gures were with female athletes. offered, only percentages, and there is no available This study fi nds that the coverage of women’s sport archive of stories gathered for the report. The absence on television in Australia, while scant, is more of an archive or raw fi gures meant that it was not favourable than that of men’s sport, and that the possible to fully benchmark this current study against tenor of both press and television coverage of women’s the 1996 study in any detail. A decision was taken sport is a positive basis for growth. The research also to focus on the qualitative aspects of coverage of fi nds, however, that while there is signifi cant evidence female athletes and female sport, with a view to that the tone, scope and balance of media coverage understanding the texture, tone and overall quality of of female athletes and women’s sport have improved the coverage. Anecdotally, it is well known that women over the past decade, there remains much work to be receive, quantitatively, far less coverage than men in done to achieve a level playing fi eld for media coverage sport. While having the quantitative data to support of women’s sport versus male sport. Male sport and this is extremely valuable, it is equally valuable to athletes still receive a disproportionately large amount understand the quality of that coverage, its tenor and of media coverage when national and international mood. Sections One to Three of this report, therefore, success, spectatorship and participation rates are investigate not only the amount of media coverage taken into account. of female athletes in a given period, but also look in depth at the content, tone and focus of this coverage. viii Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Methodology Section Two This section is a qualitative analysis of television Section One news coverage of sport on the fi ve free-to-air television Section One was conducted using a mixed methodology stations in the Sydney and Melbourne markets (in order approach, combining the following four methods: to achieve a balance between AFL and NRL-dominated markets), and national markets where appropriate. • a literature review The following stations and programs were analysed: • a quantitative analysis of media coverage of • ABC1: ABC News from the Sydney and women’s sport in newspapers, magazines and on Melbourne markets television (including pay television) • Channel 7: Seven News from the Sydney and • a qualitative analysis of media coverage that Melbourne markets contextualises and analyses the focus of the coverage and enables a comparison with relevant • Channel Nine: National Nine News from the Sydney coverage of male sport and Melbourne markets

• interviews with key stakeholders in the sport and • SBS: World News Australia, which is broadcast media sectors. nationally • Channel Ten: Ten News from the Sydney and Four mass media outlets were examined during a Melbourne markets, as well as Sports Tonight early two-week period, from 25 November to 8 December edition and Late News with Sports Tonight, which are 2008. They were selected according to media tracking broadcast nationally. lists provided by the media monitoring service Slice Media. The media outlets were surveyed on a national, Given budgetary constraints, sampling was required metropolitan and regional level and included: and, therefore, the relevant news reports from the above programs were selected from the fi rst six days of each • newspapers (national, capital city daily and month, from October 2008 to July 2009. A total of 3424 regional daily) reports were analysed. • magazines (lifestyle) In order to provide consistency with Section One, this • radio (national and state/territory-based qualitative analysis adopts much of the linguistic metropolitan stations) and visual analysis framework used in that section. Where Section One analyses an article’s headline and • television (national, including pay television, and accompanying still images, Section Two examines the state/territory-based metropolitan stations). fi rst sentence of television news reporting and any The sample period did not overlap with any major imagery in the studio backdrop. More than simply international sporting tournaments. However, the allowing continuity with Section One, however, analysis announcement, on 8 December 2008, of the death of of these components of television news reporting is marathon runner Kerryn McCann did infl ate the numbers important as they can, to a certain extent, predispose for sports reporting covering athletics and the fi gures for the viewer to a particular opinion. radio reporting, as that was where the story fi rst broke Section Two extends on Section One by applying the in the media. There were no newspaper reports on this same linguistic and visual analysis framework to news event as the sample period ended on 8 December television reports in their entirety, in order to identify (the day of the announcement). any further trends. It should be noted that, as many The data were collected using keyword search strings of these approaches were designed to analyse written (which allow for this study to be replicated in future), as opposed to spoken language (for example, Martin that were distributed among several tracking folders. and White [2005] — on whose work the framework for Information about the stories collected for analysis emotion lexis used in Section One was partly based in this research project was stored in an electronic — concentrate on print journalism and other instances relational database management system. of the written word), minor modifi cations in approach have been made. For example, pronouns (gendered and Given budgetary constraints, only the print media gender-neutral) were analysed in Section One but have items in the archive could be analysed in a qualitative not been tracked in the analysis of television sports manner. Information collected on radio and television reports in their entirety, conducted in Section Two, as broadcasts formed part of the general quantitative pronouns are a basic unit of spoken language and, while content analysis. The archive was, however, checked it is useful to examine their use in headlines, they are a manually to ensure that irrelevant stories were not necessary part of English grammar. counted in the fi nal analysis. INTRODUCTION ix

As a more medium-specifi c framework, Section sports-related coverage in the Australian media over Two also included analysis of the narrative frames the period. deployed in television coverage of sport, following Reports about female athletes and teams have the work of Vande Berg and Projansky (2003), who been identifi ed using sets of female-related terms analysed television coverage of women’s and men’s in proximity to sports-related terms. Sports-related US professional basketball games in 1996–97. terms by themselves were then used to measure total Beyond these categories of discourse analysis, Section sports coverage. Results are therefore indicative of Two also: actual results; this approach is not intended to account for every individual report, but is a transparent and • timed the duration of each news report replicable method of characterising coverage as a whole. • tracked the sports and specifi c leagues mentioned Note that although the broadcast charts provide data for in coverage general sports coverage as well as female-related sports • analysed a range of issues related to event training coverage, press charts (and associated tables) in Section and preparation (including training, fi tness, results Four present female-related data only. This is due to and drug testing) and the corporate side of sport different retrospective searching methodologies used for (including management and sponsorship) in order each media type as well as the prohibitive scale of total to identify any gender-specifi c trends in the fi ner press data available. Note also that syndicated broadcast details of sports reports on television data have not been included in this analysis.

• included a story order analysis for the same Section Five set of television news programs for the period Section Five provides a quantitative media analysis of 1–10 March 2009, in order to identify the all non-news programming of sports on Channels 7, privileging, or otherwise, of particular sports Nine and Ten; ABC1 and ABC2; SBS; and Fox Sports news reports in the evening news line-up 1, 2 and 3 over the period 1 January–31 December • in line with the CARMA® methodology used 2008 in the Sydney and Melbourne markets (although by Media Monitors, tracked favourable and it should be noted that the duration fi gures for ABC2 unfavourable messages about sports and athletes, and Fox Sports 1, 2 and 3 can be considered national). noted all spokespeople quoted in coverage, and This component analyses all sports coverage on provided a measure of favourability. For a more these channels that is not considered sports news detailed description of the CARMA® methodology, or current affairs. This does not include television see Appendix A. news, magazine-style programming and the like (which may have featured activities around sport, Section Three such as interviews, but did not primarily display Section Three is a qualitative media analysis of the sports competitions or matches). television news coverage of the Beijing 2008 Olympic The sport gender type indicates which gender was Games in the Melbourne market. The scope of this the focus of the television coverage. As with Sections analysis was limited to the evening news on ABC1, Two and Three, the ‘mixed’ category has been used SBS and Channels 7, Nine and Ten over the period for sports in which men and women were competing 1–26 August 2008. with or against each other (for example, team tennis) This section adopts the same methodology as or in which they were likely to have appeared to be outlined for Section Two, with the special study on the competing in the same event at the same time (for Beijing Olympics designed to explore the variances in example, marathon). All other sports, where possible, gender representation at an international event where have been classifi ed according to program details (a commercial interests (in terms of sponsorship) are small proportion were indeterminate and have been less dominant. labelled as such). In some cases where the gender of participants was not clear, historical data for male and Section Four female coverage of the given sport have been applied. This section provides quantitative media analysis of In addition to providing a breakdown of the air time coverage appearing in press, radio and television in devoted to men’s versus women’s sport on these Australia for the period 1 January–31 December 2008, stations, Section Five also provides information about providing a top-line analysis of female sport and women the audience watching these sports in the Sydney and in sport using general sport as a reference point. Melbourne markets.

This analysis identifi es and quantifi es reports about All data used in Section Five were obtained from female athletes and teams as a proportion of all OzTAM Australia.

SECTION ONE

SECTION ONE

Quantitative fi gures and qualitative media analysis of press coverage 25 November–8 December 2008 2 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Volume of stories by publication date Media format, publication date and

Table 2: Number of stories by publication date* publication type

Publication date # of stories Table 3: Number of stories by media format and November 19 1 publication date 21 1 Publication date Newspapers Magazines Radio Television 24 1 November 19 1 25 8 21 1 26 45 24 1 27 32 25 5 3 28 30 26 37 8 29 42 27 21 8 3 30 40 28 22 6 2 December 1 35 29 42 226 30 26 10 4 325December 1 31 3 1 433 2 25 1 525 3 7 1 17 625 4 30 3 733 5 24 1 8** 96 6 25 13 1 7 31 2 15 1 8 23 54 19 Total 500 13 1 15 1 * Media monitoring took place between Tuesday 25 November and Monday 8 December 2008. A few stories fell outside these Total 344 8 116 32 media monitoring dates as the publication times for magazine stories were either weekly or monthly. Table 3 shows the total number of stories, by ** The announcement of the death of marathon runner Kerryn publication date, produced by the major news media McCann distorts the fi gures for this date. of print newspapers and magazines, and broadcast radio and television. Newspaper stories dominated the sample period with a total of 343 stories collected. The Slice Media monitoring service also provided information on the types of publications (across all media) categorised by region, and this is summarised in Table 4.

Volume of stories by publication type

Table 4: Volume of stories by publication type

Publication type # of stories % of total corpus Capital city daily 179 35.8 Regional daily 154 30.8 Metro 146 29.2 National 21 4.2 Total 500 100 SECTION ONE 3

The categories ‘capital city daily’ and ‘regional daily’ Table 6: Story count by reporter* were applied to newspapers, so, for example, The Name of reporter # of stories Sydney Morning Herald was classifi ed as a ‘capital Unattributed 120 city daily’, while The Morning Bulletin (Rockhampton) was classifi ed as a ‘regional daily’. There was one AAP (Australian Associated Press) 12 national newspaper recorded in this study, which was Merryn Sherwood 12 The Australian. Magazines were classifi ed as ‘national’. Paul Malone 7 Radio and television stations were classifi ed as either Chris Roots 5 ‘metro’ or ‘national’. All television stations were Andrew Aloila 4 assigned the category ‘metro’, as they were all identifi ed Dan Silkstone 4 by location (state capital) in the media tracking fi les. Ellen Whinnett 4 For example, Fox Sports News was classifi ed a ‘metro’ television station as it identifi ed Sydney as its broadcast Josh Leeson 4 location. Only two radio broadcasters were defi ned as Nicole Jeffrey 4 ‘national’. These were Triple J and Radio National, both AAP and John Salvado 3 of which are ABC radio stations. Jackie Epstein 3 Jesse Hogan 3 Kristen Burrows 3 Publication type Linda Pearce 3

Newspapers * Table 6 shows the top 15 reporters. Of these stories, 48.4% were in general news and 44.6% were located in the sports pages. In the following section, general analyses of newspapers are offered in terms of the major publications in which Magazines stories were published (Table 5). Only eight stories in the whole corpus were sourced Table 5: Story count by newspaper from magazines. The following table summarises the data collected on magazine stories. Seven of the eight Publication # of stories % of corpus magazine articles made use of photographs in their Syndicated copy 35 10.2 stories. The one story that did not use an image was The Canberra Times 25 7.3 the news report on the death of an Indigenous netballer The Age 22 6.4 in the Koori Mail. The Courier-Mail 17 5.0 Table 7: Story count by magazine Herald Sun 16 4.7 The Sunday Mail 12 3.5 Publication # of stories % of corpus The Sunshine Coast Daily 11 3.2 The Australian Jewish News 1 12.5 The Australian 11 3.2 Koori Mail 2 25.0 The Newcastle Herald 10 2.9 LOTL 1 12.5 Illawarra Mercury 10 2.9 TV Week 1 12.5 Who Weekly 1 12.5 Of all of the reporters in the archive, female journalist Woman’s Day 1 12.5 Merryn Sherwood, who writes for The Canberra Times, ZOO Weekly 1 12.5 produced the largest number of stories (12). She Total 8 100 was followed by Paul Malone (seven stories), who is a renowned sports reporter currently writing for The Courier-Mail (Brisbane). Of the top 13 named reporters, Radio seven of them were female. A total of 76 stories in the A total of 116 stories were collected from radio print newspaper and magazine corpus were written by broadcasters. Tables 8 and 9 present the general named female journalists. analysis of data collected on radio programs. In contrast to the newspaper reporting on sportswomen (which tended to include quite long stories), nearly 60% of radio stories were short, that is, less than one minute in duration. Furthermore, only seven female presenters were identifi ed as participating in any radio discussion. 4 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Table 8: Story count by radio station Table 9: Story count by radio program

Station # of stories % of corpus Program # of stories % of corpus 3AW 10 8.6 News 80 69.0 2GB 8 6.9 Morning 6 5.2 2UE 6 5.2 Morning Glory 5 4.3 4BC 6 5.2 Breakfast 4 3.4 ABC 702 Sydney 6 5.2 Sports Today 4 3.4 SEN 6 5.2 Afternoons 2 1.7 2SM 5 4.3 Burning Down the House 2 1.7 Mix FM 5 4.3 The Big Sports Breakfast 1 0.9 Nova 5 4.3 Drive 1 0.9 6PR 4 3.4 Grandstand 1 0.9 6RTR 4 3.4 Nightline 1 0.9 ABC 666 Canberra 4 3.4 Nights 1 0.9 ABC 774 Melbourne 4 3.4 Sport Central 1 0.9 ABC 936 Hobart 4 3.4 The Sports Factor 1 0.9 5AA 3 2.6 Sports Show 1 0.9 98.5 Sonshine FM 3 2.6 Steve Gordon 1 0.9 ABC 612 Brisbane 3 2.6 The Good Life 1 0.9 ABC 891 Adelaide 3 2.6 The Run Home 1 0.9 SEA FM 3 2.6 Today 1 0.9 4KQ 2 1.7 Weekend Wireless 1 0.9 ABC 720 Perth 2 1.7 Total 116 100 Cruise 2 1.7 Curtin FM 2 1.7 Television GOLD FM 104.3 2 1.7 A total of 32 news items relating to female sport Heart FM 2 1.7 were retrieved from television stations during the HOFM 2 1.7 sample period. Triple M 2 1.7 2KY 1 0.9 Table 10: Story count by television station Channel 9 1 0.9 Station # of stories % of corpus FM104.7 1 0.9 Channel Ten 8 25.0 JOY 94.9FM 1 0.9 Channel 7 7 21.9 Radio National 1 0.9 ABC1 6 18.8 Sport 927 1 0.9 Fox Sports 5 15.6 Triple J 1 0.9 Sky News Australia 4 12.5 WS FM 1 0.9 Channel Nine 2 6.3 Total 116 100 Total 32 100

Table 11: Story count by television program

Program # of stories % of corpus News 26 81.3 Sunrise 3 9.4 Early News 1 3.1 Sports Tonight 1 3.1 Today 1 3.1 Total 32 100 SECTION ONE 5

Other general information Sport # of stories % of corpus • Total number of stories about sportswomen with Basketball 1 0.2 disability: 5 Gay Games 1 0.2 Gymnastics 1 0.2 • Total number of stories about Indigenous sports and/or sportswomen: 2 Polo 1 0.2 Youth Olympic Games 1 0.2 • Total number of stories about regional or amateur Sailing 1 0.2 sports: 5 Water polo 1 0.2 • Total number of stories with a specifi c focus on Windsurfi ng 1 0.2 gender issues: 10 Total 498 100

* 62 of these stories concern the death of marathon runner Analysis according to sport Kerryn McCann. The reason for two separate football (soccer) A total of 500 stories were analysed according to the categories is due to some stories being about football sports on which they reported. Table 12 lists all the in general, for example, the Homeless World Cup sports and the number of stories on each. The number held in Melbourne, while others were reporting on the of stories on athletics was infl ated by the death of Australian women’s national soccer competition (the marathon runner Kerryn McCann, which attracted W-League). The same reason applies to the use of 62 news reports in one day. ‘Women’s National Basketball League’ and ‘basketball’. Table 12: Story count by sport The category ‘all’ was used when news reports were discussing sports in general, with or without specifi c Sport # of stories % of corpus reference to particular sports, or when sportswomen Athletics 105* 21.0 across several sporting disciplines were discussed in Surfi ng 51 10.2 the same news item. Swimming 45 9.0 The following tables show the distribution of the sports All 39 7.8 across each of the publication types. Cricket 37 7.4 Tennis 35 7.0 Table 13: Story count in newspapers by sport Netball 28 5.6 Sport # of stories % of corpus Cycling 27 5.4 Athletics 38 11.1 W-League football (soccer) 26 5.2 Surfi ng 38 11.1 Football (soccer) 15 3.0 Cricket 35 10.2 Golf 15 3.0 Swimming 29 8.5 Women’s National Basketball 11 2.2 All 26 7.6 League/basketball Tennis 26 7.6 Hockey 7 1.4 W-League football (soccer) 25 7.3 Softball 6 1.2 Golf 15 4.4 Squash 6 1.2 Netball 15 4.4 Ironwoman 5 1.0 Cycling 13 3.8 Rugby union 5 1.0 Football (soccer) 11 3.2 Australian rules football 5 1.0 Women’s National 11 3.2 Triathlon 4 0.8 Basketball League Diving 3 0.6 Hockey 7 2.0 Rowing 3 0.6 Softball 6 1.7 Boxing 3 0.6 Squash 6 1.7 Sports industry 3 0.6 Australian rules football 5 1.5 Motor sports 2 0.4 Ironwoman 5 1.5 Rugby league 2 0.4 Rugby union 5 1.5 Canoeing 1 0.2 Triathlon 4 1.2 Roller derby 1 0.2 Rowing 3 0.9 continued over 6 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Sport # of stories % of corpus Table 16: Story count in television by sport Boxing 2 0.6 Sport # of stories % of corpus Diving 2 0.6 Athletics 18 56.3 Motor sports 2 0.6 Swimming 8 25.0 Rugby league 2 0.6 Netball 4 12.5 Sports industry 2 0.6 Cycling 1 3.1 Basketball 1 0.3 Surfi ng 1 3.1 Canoeing 1 0.3 Total 32 100 Gymnastics 1 0.3 Olympics (general) 1 0.3 Polo 1 0.3 Qualitative fi ndings: media coverage, Roller derby 1 0.3 sport and gender Sailing 1 0.3 There are ample studies available that have Water polo 1 0.3 investigated the extent to which sports can be Youth Olympic Games 1 0.3 considered gender-specifi c or gender-neutral (see Jones Total 342 100 2003:108–11 for an overview of the research on the ‘gender appropriateness’ of sports). Decisions about Table 14: Story count in magazines by sport the gender appropriateness of sports are based on traditional concepts of what is deemed ‘appropriate’ Sport # of stories % of corpus female behaviour (Kane and Greendorfer 1994; Jones, All 2 25.0 Murrell and Jackson 1999). This means that sports Swimming 2 25.0 that emphasise power, physical strength and contact Gay Games 1 12.5 are considered male-appropriate sports, since they Netball 1 12.5 require active, aggressive and autonomous behaviour, Soccer 1 12.5 while female-appropriate sports are said to emphasise Tennis 1 12.5 aesthetics and beauty and discourage physicality (Jones, Murrell and Jackson 1999:1–2). Daddario Total 8 100 (1998) offers the following guidelines for determining the gender appropriateness of sports: Table 15: Story count in radio by sport Inappropriate sports [for women] are those requiring Sport # of stories % of corpus bodily contact, confl ict, or face-to-face opposition, or Athletics 49 42.2 those requiring heavy equipment, padded uniforms, or Cycling 13 11.2 protective armor. [F]eminine sports … include those Surfi ng 12 10.3 that depict females in aesthetically pleasing motions All 11 9.5 and poses, often emphasizing the erotic physicality of Netball 8 6.9 the female body [and include] gymnastics, swimming, tennis, golf and diving. Unlike sex-inappropriate Tennis 8 6.9 sports, these also give the appearance of posing Swimming 6 5.2 little physical risk and being unlikely to cause bodily Football (soccer) 3 2.6 injury to the athlete. [S]ex-differentiated sports [have Cricket 2 1.7 been identifi ed] not only according to their required Diving 1 0.9 levels of strength, risk, and aggression, but according Sports industry 1 0.9 to their competitive orientation. Masculine sports Windsurfi ng 1 0.9 tend to be team-oriented, with athletes competing directly against others in a challenge for power W-League football (soccer) 1 0.9 and control. By contrast, feminine sports tend to Total 116 100 be individual-oriented, where an athlete competes against herself or a pre-set standard of excellence, such as a personal best, world record, or an opponent’s score (Daddario 1998:11–12). SECTION ONE 7

Jones (2003:108) also suggests that gender Table 17: Classifi cation of sports according to gender stereotypes have been reinforced in the media by Female Male Gender % of ‘restricting media coverage to appropriate female sport, Sport appropriate appropriate neutral corpus and by portraying women athletes according to the sex- Archery appropriateness of their sports’. This is supported by Athletics 21.0 a study of the The Newcastle Herald that found that the Australian rules 1.0 ‘female sports’ of tennis, golf and swimming accounted football for almost half of the sports coverage for women Baseball (Brown 1995:28). Coverage of both the 1992 and Basketball 2.4 1996 Olympic Games featured women participating in physically attractive sports, such as diving, swimming Beach volleyball and gymnastics, rather than hard contact sports Boxing 0.6 (such as judo) and sports involving explosive strength Canoeing 0.2 and physical power (Higgs and Weiller 1994:235; Cricket 7.4 Tuggle and Owen 1999:5; see also Kinnick 1998 and Cycling 5.4 Daddario 1998). Diving 0.6 Another issue that has been noted in research on the Equestrian Olympic Games is that there is considerable disparity Football (soccer) 8.2 between the number of medals that women win and the Golf 3.0 amount of coverage they receive in the media. As Jones Gymnastics (2003) notes: Hockey 1.4 In rowing, US women won two medals to the one for Ice skating US men, yet received less than one third as much Ironman coverage. NBC broadcast nearly 24 minutes of men’s Ironwoman 1.0 weightlifting, although no US men gained a medal. By Judo comparison, two US women weightlifters won a gold Motor sports 0.4 and a bronze medal, but their success warranted no Mountain biking prime time coverage (Tuggle, Huffman and Rosengard Netball 5.6 2002:372, cited in Jones 2003:109). Polo 0.2 In line with this research, this study has summarised Roller derby 0.2 the classifi cation of sport by gender in Table 17. The Rowing 0.6 contents of this table were then compared to the Rugby league 0.4 sports that were identifi ed in our research project on Rugby union 1.0 the coverage of women’s sports in the media. Sports Sailing 0.2 in our study that were identifi ed and reported on in the media with specifi c reference to female participation are Shooting shaded in the table. The percentage of coverage in the Softball 1.2 current study is given in the fi nal column. As the table Squash 1.2 indicates, the Australian media coverage of women Surfi ng 10.2 participating in sport covers a wide range of sports of Swimming 9.0 which, research would suggest, most are deemed not Synchronised appropriate for females. Only fi ve of the sports covered Swimming in the current research would be termed ‘female Taekwondo appropriate’, and two are ‘gender-neutral’ sports. Tennis 7.0 Trampolining Triathlon 0.8 Volleyball Water polo 0.2 Windsurfi ng 0.2

Compiled from studies by Jones 2003; Jones, Murrell and Jackson 1999; Daddario 1998. The shaded areas indicate the sports that were covered in the current research project. 8 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Text type analysis Research suggests that the photographic representation of sportswomen in the media is relatively rare (Kachgal We analysed our media archive according to genre, 2001) and, when it does occur, ‘a substantial proportion to see whether media coverage of women’s sports of it is actually derogatory or focused exclusively on was located primarily in sports news, general news, or the sportswoman’s physical appearance’ (Donohoe feature or opinion pieces. For the purposes of analysis, 2003:4). Alternatively, it focuses on women competing we broke these four categories down further, into news in so-called ‘feminine sports’, such as gymnastics reports and briefs; comment and opinion; human or diving, which emphasise the aesthetics or beauty interest, features and profi les; advertising, quizzes and of performance, rather than the physicality of the gossip; and match reports and previews. In the analysis sport (Kane 1996; Lumpkin and Williams 1991). of this sports story corpus, a total of 15 text types Heavy gender bias in sports photography has also were identifi ed. Table 18 summarises these text types been noted by Duncan (1990) who suggests that according to the categories outlined above. this can be seen in excessive focus on the physical appearance of women, showing them in poses with Image analysis sexual connotations, the excessive use of images with The media monitoring service used for this research emotional display, such as tears, and by portraying project allowed for the capture of images from print women as passive participants in sports while men publications only. No moving or still images were are depicted as active competitors (see also Lumpkin available from the television stories. The total number and Williams 1991; Hardin et al. 2002). In order to of print stories that made use of photographs was 174. test this notion of female passivity in photographs, This meant that 49% of newspaper stories included a Jones (2006) examined the use of images of female photograph of a sportswoman and 88% of magazine athletes competing in the 2004 Olympic Games on stories included photographic images, as shown in the website of Australia’s national public broadcaster, Table 19. One magazine story did not include any ABC News Online. She defi ned subjects as ‘passive’ photographs (#476). This was a story that appeared if they were photographed motionless, photographed in the Koori Mail, and concerned the death of an from the neck up, posing for the camera or celebrating Indigenous netballer. The vast majority (87%) of all (Jones 2006:116). Active subjects, she suggested, images were in colour. ‘were clearly doing something; that is, they were shown

Table 18: Text type categorisation

General to all Specifi c to Text type news reporting sports reporting Timebound Less timebound ‘Objective’ ‘Subjective’ News report (event and issues) News brief Comment/opinion Interview Gossip Book review Human interest Feature Profi le Advertising Quiz How to … Match report Match preview

Table 19: Image count by publication Publication # of images % of image corpus % of print corpus Newspapers 167 96 49 Magazines 7 4 88 SECTION ONE 9

competing in or about to compete in their sport’ Table 20: Image count by action versus posed shot type (Jones 2006:116). From a total of 80 images of Action shots Posed shots Posed action shots female athletes, she found that 48 (60%) displayed Publication #% #% # % women ‘actively’ participating in their sports and Newspapers 66 40 90 54 11 7 32 (40%) in ‘passive’ roles. Magazines 3 43 4 57 In line with Jones’s research, the photographs of sportswomen in this research project were also As far as poses with sexual connotations are analysed with respect to activity or passivity. The concerned, very few of the images that appeared results are displayed in Table 20. A further category of in the newspapers in this study could be said to be ‘posed action shots’ was added in this study since a glamorised or sexualised (although there will always be small number of photographs included sportswomen debate about which images belong in either category). performing certain actions for the camera. For Magazines were the main source of glamorised or example, Story #64 showed a Canberra United soccer sexualised images. The results are shown in Tables player demonstrating the football skill of heading 21 and 22. One thing that should be noted, however, the ball. If we include the posed action shots in the is that Stephanie Rice was consistently photographed action category, then we can see an almost even split in ‘glamorous’ poses. There was one special case in between images showing sportswomen in active and the use of overtly sexualised images in the magazine passive poses. ZOO Weekly.

Table 21: Image count by use of glamour/fashion shots

Figure 1: Example of action/posed shot Publication # of images % of corpus Newspapers 13 8 Magazines 3 43

Table 22: Image count by sexualised and glamour shots

Publication # of images % of corpus Newspapers 2 1 Magazines 2 29

The 1996 ASC report on the media coverage and portrayal of women’s sport in Australia suggested that female athletes tend to be photographed with their families (Phillips 1996). In the current 2008 study, only six images showed sportswomen in relationship photographs and, in each of these instances, the focus of the story was actually on that aspect of their lives, for example, having a baby (#70), or wanting to say thank you for the support of family members (#290).

Action shot [#229] 10 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Figure 2: Example shots of athletes in family/relationship context shots

Mo’onia Gerrard with her brother [#367] (Nick Cubbin/Fairfax photos)

Tamsyn Lewis with her dog [#286] (Newspix/Aaron Francis)

Heather Langman with her father [#290] (Newspix/Justin Sanson) SECTION ONE 11

We also looked at the relationship that images Figure 3: Examples of social distance potentially set up with the viewer on the basis of research (Kress and van Leeuwen 2006; Hall 1964, 1966), which suggests we each carry with us a set of invisible boundaries that determine the distance we keep from others (for a fuller explanation of these sensory confi gurations see Kress and van Leeuwen 2006:124–5). In terms of press photography, a close-up shot allows a more intimate relationship with the person photographed. A mid shot, usually cut off around waist level, enacts a social relationship, while a long shot is seen as enacting a public relationship between the viewer and represented participant.

Of course, there are many other visual conventions that affect the way we understand an image. For example, some sexualised images show the body from a distance and may include the woman or man averting their eyes to encourage the viewer to feel comfortable with gazing at their body. In our survey then, the measure Close-up shot enacting an intimate relationship [#20] of social distance from the viewer is only presented as (Newspix/Aaron Francis) a general measure of the intimacy with which viewers are encouraged to engage with female athletes, not as a defi nitive test. Our qualitative analysis of images of female athletes also relied on a wider range of visual conventions that gave us a more contextual sense of whether a woman was being sexualised or set apart for her physical attributes.

In our archive, nearly 90% of all images were shot from either a public or social distance, which means that female athletes were usually photographed from either the waist up or showing their full body. Few images (13%) were close-up shots. Table 23 summarises the results for social distance analysis.

Table 23: Image count by social distance Mid-length shot enacting a social relationship [#141] Social distance # of images % of corpus (Orlando Chiodo/Fairfax photos) Public 65 37 Social 87 50 Intimate 22 13

The majority of mid to full-length shots of female sports players did not focus in any particular way on their bodies. The only images that might be understood as glamorising and/or sexualising were published in magazines and the majority of these were published in contexts where male athletes also appeared in similar poses. The trend towards glamorising and sexualising star athletes appears to work across gender boundaries.

Long shot enacting a public relationship [#111] 12 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

We also looked at images to understand how female Table 26: Analysis of posed shots athletes are depicted when it comes to expressions Genre # of stories % of emotion (see Martin and Rose 2003; Martin and Human interest 25 24 White 2005). The 1996 report found that the majority of females were portrayed as smiling or happy. Our Profi le 21 20 fi ndings, perhaps not surprisingly, were that the emotion Feature 17 17 depicted depended very much on the setting in which News report 15 15 the image was taken. Women photographed in action Match preview 6 6 tended to be focused and women who were posed tended to be smiling or looking happy. News brief 5 5 Match report 5 5 Table 24: Analysis of emotional display in relation to action Issues based 5 5 versus posed images Interview 1 1 In action Posed Posed action How to … 1 1 Emotion #%#%#% Happy 9 5 87 48 6 55 Gossip column 1 1 Focused 55 30 2 18 Comment/opinion 1 1 Serious 1 1 6 3 2 18 Aggressive 1 1 Figure 4: Displays of facial affect Enthusiastic 1 1 1 9 Relieved 1 1 Shock 1 1

The use of action versus posed shots in relation to text type is shown in Tables 25 and 26. Other combinations of image analysis with sports and emotional display are offered in Table 27. Happy [#4] Focused [#118]

Table 25: Analysis of action shots

Genre # of stories % Match report 23 29 News report 16 20 Feature 10 13 Profi le 8 10 Match preview 7 9 Serious [#20] Aggressive [#95] (Newspix/Aaron Francis) (Newspix/Peter Ward) Human interest 7 9 News brief 2 3 Advertising feature 2 3 Issues based 1 1 Interview 1 1 How to … 1 1 Comment/opinion 1 1 Book review 1 1 Enthusiastic [#21] Relieved [#96] (Newspix/Kevin Bull)

Shock [#72] (Newspix/AFP Valery Hache) SECTION ONE 13

Table 27: Analysis of emotional display according to sport

Sport Happy Focused Aggressive Enthusiastic Relieved Serious Shock All 11 2 1 Athletics 12 4 1 3 1 Australian rules football 2 2 Basketball 1 Boxing 1 Canoeing 1 Cricket 9 7 Cycling 4 1 Diving 1

Headline analysis This is reinforced by the fact that in the gender-neutral naming analysis only fi ve age references are made, In analysing the reporting on sportswomen, we were to either ‘teen/ager’ or ‘young’. The female athletes interested to see to what extent stories drew attention referred to in our study are rarely identifi ed in relation to to gender and away from performance as athletes. their age. There are only three instances of abbreviating One of the simplest and most obvious ways of drawing a sportswoman’s name in the corpus. Other diminutives attention to gender is through the use of gendered are not used at all. Furthermore, there is no evidence of naming devices, such as fi rst names (for example the use of other constructions of gender identity such ‘Stephanie’ and ‘Libby’), pronouns (‘she’ and ‘her’) as the use of objects (‘old bag’), animals (‘bitch’), or or other gendered noun phrases (‘woman’, ‘girl’ and food (‘peach’ and ‘tart’). There is one story (#117) that ‘sister’). Placing these references in a headline draws frames a male athlete (Chris Rawlinson) in terms of his attention to the fact that the story is about female relationship with his partner (Jana Rawlinson), also an sports players. It should be noted, of course, that use of athlete, referring to him as Jana’s ‘hubby’/‘husband’. a fi rst name can also be a sign that the player is seen as popular with readers and instantly recognisable. As far as the analysis of headlines for gender-neutral naming devices is concerned, female athletes were most Our analysis found that gendered naming devices were commonly named by their family name only. The next used in 105 headlines. This means that only 25% of most common method of naming women was to use all headlines made any explicit reference to the female other gender-neutral noun phrases such as ‘sporting gender. Examples of gendered naming devices are given star’, ‘champion’, ‘hero’ or ‘guns’, which all have positive in Table 28, along with the number of instances of each. evaluative meanings. Table 29 summarises the fi ndings regarding the use of gender-neutral naming devices. Table 28: Use of gendered naming devices

Gendered naming device Example # Table 29: Use of gender-neutral naming devices First name only Amy, Leisel, Susie Q, 54 Gender-neutral Jessica naming device Example # Abbreviated fi rst name Steph, Em, Jess 3 Family name Dokic, Gerrard, Gilmore, 184 Pronoun her 4 Beachley Other noun phrases women, sister, fairer sex, 37 Other noun phrases sporting stars, heroes, champs, 64 mother, girl guns, ace, sensation Team name Bendigo Spirit, Canberra United, 30 It is interesting to note that there were only six Pride, Jets instances of ‘girl’ or ‘girls’ in the headlines, which Position judge, player, runner, Olympian, 16 goes against previous suggestions that sportswomen rookie, goalie are ‘always “girls” in sporting parlance’ (Tebbel Sport/competition name netball, Twenty20, World Cup 16 2000:135). Furthermore, three of these instances Nationality Kenyan, Aussie 6 combine ‘girls’ with ‘golden’ or ‘glory’ (as in the Perth W-League football team), which suggests that the use Pronoun they, we, I 6 of ‘girls’ may have more to do with alliterative effects, Age reference teen, youngster 5 rather than an attempt (deliberate or otherwise) to State/country name Qld, NSW, Australia 5 frame sportswomen as young or ‘softer’ than their male counterparts (Sigley and Holmes 2002:143). 14 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

We also note that the frequent use of family names, and • ‘Beachley praised for not making waves over gaffe’ occasionally fi rst names, to identify sportswomen in the • ‘Layne hailed’ headlines, without further identifying reference to their sports, carries with it the assumption that the reader is • ‘Praise for Beachley’ already familiar with the person or the sport in question. • ‘Beachley praised for sportsmanship’ Headlines can also hint at very specifi c knowledge of • ‘Beachley good sport’ sporting terminology, for example, in the headline ‘Sally gets sponsor, joins the big league’, reference is made • ‘Beachley not making waves’ to the US$1 million IAAF Golden League series, which is In each of these headlines, Layne Beachley is being commonly termed ‘big league athletics’. Sally McLellan positively evaluated for her conduct over the incident is an Australian Olympic athlete. with Coco Ho. They document her demonstrating We also looked at headlines to see how they portrayed poise, calmness and good sportsmanship, all of which the athlete or team in emotional terms. Stereotypes are positive attributes in any sports player. Negative have it that women express more emotions than men evaluations also appeared in this corpus, however, there (Galasinski 2004:12), but in the sporting arena — a were very few in comparison to positive evaluations of highly emotional and stressful context — emotions emotivity. Again, they related mostly to performance clearly run high. The 1996 ASC report suggested that and conduct in the sporting arena. Table 31 shows emotion was stressed in the coverage of sportswomen, the distribution of positive and negative emotivity in while sportsmen displayed little emotion; rather, they the headlines in this news story corpus. As the table were applauded for their toughness. indicates, in this corpus the instances of evaluation of positive emotivity far outweigh the instances of For the purpose of this study, the expression of evaluation of negative emotivity. emotions was classifi ed as either positive, as in ‘happy’, ‘enjoy’ or ‘enthusiastic’; or negative, as in Table 31: Use of emotivity ‘sad’, ‘disappointed’ or ‘scared’ (for a comprehensive Emotivity Example # categorisation of emotion lexis see Martin and White Positive gets set, poised, an ambassador, 163 2005; Bednarek 2008). As can be seen in Table 30, shines, breaks injury cycle there were relatively few instances across the entire Negative unlucky, falls short, blows chance, 14 corpus of the use of emotion lexis in the headlines, forced to graft with slightly more positive emotion words appearing than negative emotion words. From Table 31, there appears to be very little negative evaluation of sportswomen. Whether this comes as a Table 30: Use of emotion lexis result of general good conduct/performance is open to Emotion lexis Example # question and would require more detailed analysis of Positive enjoy, having a ball, happy, joy 17 the body text of these stories. However, from looking Negative fear, scare, sad, blues, irks, sorry 12 at the headlines alone, there appears to be an overall positive stance taken on female athletes, on their We also looked at emotivity, which is concerned with professional conduct, on their fi tness, and on their skills ‘the journalist’s, news actor’s or source’s evaluation and abilities. of events, things, people, activities or other evaluated Tied in with the notion of emotivity are the analyses entities as good or bad, positive or negative, that of the source and the target of the evaluation. For is, with the expression of approval or disapproval’ example, the source (the ‘doer’) of an evaluation can (Bednarek forthcoming). In terms of sports reporting, be the journalist (as in the headline ‘Beachley not such evaluations would encompass the preparations making waves’), another named source (as in ‘Tour and performance of sportswomen in the sporting judge applauds Beachley’, in which it is the tour judge arena, their skills and abilities, and their behaviour/ evaluating Beachley positively) or another external conduct both on and off the fi eld. For example, the source that is not identifi able from the headline alone following headlines (Story #6) appeared in newspapers (as in ‘Beachley praised for not making waves over following an incident at the Reef Hawaiian Pro that cost gaffe’, in which the passive structure does not explicitly Australian surfer Layne Beachley the opportunity to win tell us the source of the evaluation). In this corpus, the surfi ng title: the target of the evaluation — that is, what/who is • ‘Tour judge applauds Beachley’ evaluated — can be a news actor (as in the example above with surfer Layne Beachley), a team, an event or • ‘Beachley praised for keeping cool after drop in’ a sport. • ‘Layne cool with Coco’s fi nal heave-ho’ • ‘Beachley’s reaction wins praise’ SECTION ONE 15

Table 32: Source of evaluation Table 34: Use of volition

Source of evaluation # Use of volition Example # Journalist 157 Volition aiming for, wants 59 Named source (tour judge, NSW Sports Institute, Non-volition forced to 1 11 Beachley) Source not identifi able from headline alone 9 It is worth looking at volition in more detail since it has important implications regarding the evaluative stance From Table 32 we can see, at least as far as female of the newspaper towards the news event (Bednarek sports reporting is concerned, journalists appear forthcoming). One story (#5) concerned tennis player to stand as ‘experts’, in that they have the licence Jelena Dokic. This was a syndicated story that appeared to evaluate news actors themselves. This is an in 17 different publications on the same day. The body interesting result that warrants further investigation text remained consistent across all stories and only as to whether these are male or female journalists the headlines changed slightly. As can be seen in the evaluating female athletes. following examples, Dokic is framed as actively pursuing a berth at the Australian Open for 2009; that is, she Table 33: Target of evaluation is acting of her own volition to secure a spot in the Target of evaluation Example # tournament. She has control of her situation and she Named person Dokic, Beachley, Gilmore 113 is acting on her own intentions. However, one headline in this group of texts reads ‘Dokic forced to graft Open sporting stars, goalie, champ, Unidentifi ed sportsperson 31 teen entry’. The use of ‘forced to’ suggests non-volition on the part of Dokic, and consequently puts her in a less Team Glory, Spirit, Lynx, Mariners 20 powerful position — indeed the situation appears to be Event games, match, netball 6 beyond her control. These are two very different ways Other fathers, mother 6 of framing Dokic and result in quite different meanings News actor outside sport Obama 1 being made at the beginning of these texts.

One fi nal category of analysis of the headline corpus Again, it is interesting to note that the target of involved the notion of agency. In this study, we took evaluation in this corpus is predominantly the individual the concept of agency to mean the one who is actively rather than the team as a whole. When this evaluation involved in the doing of something in the headline text; is overwhelmingly positive, it can serve to boost the that is, an agent is the doer of the activity. There are targeted individual. However, when very negative, it can 217 instances of female athletes or teams involved as prove quite damaging to the individual. agents in the doing of something in the headline text, The third parameter of evaluative meaning examined as the examples below demonstrate. in our research was the extent to which the sportswomen identifi ed in the headlines were seen Table 35: Use of agency to be acting in accordance with their own wishes Story Headline or intentions, or if they were being compelled to #13 ‘Mwangi beats Gillard to the top’ do something against their will. This subcategory #14 ‘Carswell defeats Bailey in open singles title at Glenorchy’ of evaluative meaning has been termed ‘volition’ (Bednarek forthcoming). In the corpus there were 59 #15 ‘Dokic determined’ instances of sportswomen acting according to their #17 ‘Sykes unlucky not to fi nd back of net’ own wishes/intentions and only one instance in which #20 ‘Henry rules out a comeback in Rome’ a sportswoman was ‘forced to’ do something. Table 34 #114 ‘Women fi ght for World Cup spots’ summarises the results for volition. #153 ‘Girls hone cricket skills at Vic Spirit camp’ #131 ‘Rookie rips in’ #181 ‘Olympic legends line up for our Great Run’ #217 ‘Sports stars ready to tackle the next level’ #243 ‘Rebels encounter Eagles’ #244 ‘Darwin Suns out-shine the Foxes’ #299 ‘NSW cruises’ #360 ‘Spirit closes in on top fi ve position’ 16 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

The state of media game: On the other hand, she acknowledged that news values are framed around well-known individuals who are able stakeholder interviews to ‘brand’ themselves for an interested public: ‘[There We conducted interviews with nine key fi gures in needs to be a] realisation that sport is a business and sports management, promotion and journalism, and people are more interested in sportspeople and their asked them about their view of the current state of lives rather than just the sport itself.’ media coverage, what worked and what did not work A strong dissenting voice was that of Carrie Graf, in promoting female athletes and women in sport. We coach of the Canberra Capitals and Australian Opals. asked them to nominate initiatives that would support Of current media coverage, she said: ‘I think [the better media coverage in the future. media coverage of women’s sport] is still substandard There was general (although not universal) agreement and it’s poor, where literally dogs and horses get that female athletes and women’s sport now got outrageously more coverage on the sports pages broader and less stereotyped coverage than might have than women in sport.’ been the case a decade or more ago. At the same An important issue that arose spontaneously in time, many of those interviewed qualifi ed their positive our interviews was the pressure that female sports remarks by noting that there was still an overwhelming reporters feel to ‘represent’ female athletes, or bias towards covering male sport, and this coverage advocate for the inclusion of female sports in coverage. was not necessarily a refl ection of the quality of the Magnay was particularly aware of this issue: athleticism on display or the popularity of the sport with spectators. There is this assumption that because you’re a female journalist in sport that it’s our role that we Exemplifying this perspective, Shelley Maher, president should be promoting women’s sport and that’s not of Women’s Lacrosse Australia, said: our job at all. I have an interest in women’s sport There is a better breadth of sports being exposed and I’m keen to see women’s sport in the paper but and a stronger focus on quality of athletes. So it’s I am not going to cover women’s sport because I’m not simply the exploitation of female bodies versus female. The cricket writer should be writing about them being recognised as athletes in their own right. women’s cricket. But it’s still not satisfactory and not enough. The ABC In a similar vein, Dr Sue Brown, a lecturer in sport has probably given the greatest ongoing support for management at the University of Ballarat, observed: women’s sport. The other area of improvement is we defi nitely have Maher went on to note: more women as sports commentators but I’m not From a minor sport perspective [such as lacrosse], really convinced that they are in a position to talk up Australia is number one in the world in women’s or promote women. They’re doing their job. Most of lacrosse and yet a very small percentage of the them are commentating on their sport of expertise, population would even know about our sport, let but they keep it very gender neutral. They’re not alone that we were champions. being employed to speak about women’s sport and talk it up. Jacquelin Magnay, a senior sports journalist at The Sydney Morning Herald, believes she has been A key concern about the coverage of women’s sport consistent in her approach to covering women’s sport that has been frequently raised in academic and in the past ten years but notes that, on an anecdotal popular literature is the perception that female athletes basis, she thinks there is slightly less coverage of are routinely trivialised, patronised and, in particular, women’s sport today. sexualised in media coverage. It was interesting to note that none of the stakeholders we interviewed As a very experienced sports reporter, Magnay offered believed this was a substantial issue when it came to some important insights into this process, which can the coverage of women’s sport. On the contrary, many infl uence news judgment on a day-to-day basis. On one of those we interviewed, including female journalists hand, she noted: and sports management executives, observed that the appetite for glamorous and visually appealing I think it’s very much a cultural thing that is driven depictions of individuals now applied across sporting from the top. It’s driven by the editor and in contexts and genders. particular the sports editor and he can determine whether a journalist covers certain events and how they cover them. I say ‘he’ because there are no female sports editors. SECTION ONE 17

Advocates of female athletes argued that, if anything, In terms of changing the extent of media coverage of the media appeal of healthy and fi t young women women’s sport, the sponsorship of it, and the breadth of playing sport, if appropriately positioned, could be an interest in watching or reading about it, all participants opportunity to promote media coverage, rather than a in our interviews were in agreement that although regressive step. As Graf noted: substantial strides have been made there is much more to be done. There was general agreement that, All sports market sport with some sort of sex appeal. outside media training initiatives for female athletes Male sports do it too. Of course they do. Athletes, and women’s sporting organisations, the real focus has male and female, have wonderful bodies and they are to be on changing social attitudes to women’s athletic great to look at from an artistic point of view or sex capacities and the capacity of women’s sport to be as appeal or whatever. So I think there is an element exciting to watch as male sport. you can use to market [your sport] in the media.

Chris Giannopolou, the director of client management at IMG Australia, who has represented Cathy Freeman and Karrie Webb, observed: ‘The aesthetic part of female sport can attract viewers, sponsors and spectators alike and the interest from sponsors and media partners has increased.’

In relation to media coverage, there was general consensus that celebrity and/or appealing looks would no longer elevate a female athlete to ‘star’ media status and that, for both genders, performance was primary. As Giannopolou said: ‘First and foremost it comes back to their performance in their fi eld of endeavour.’

Reinforcing this view, Bonita Mersiades, head of corporate and public affairs at the Football Federation Australia, noted:

More than anything else I think success gets coverage. We noticed when our national women’s team, the Matildas, made the women’s World Cup and did better than people expected in the 2007 World Cup it did get coverage.

A key theme that emerged in interviews with those involved in sports management was the importance of promoting women’s sport through more general media. As Mersiades observed:

We do actively try to get women’s football in non- football media such as Women’s Weekly, Women’s Health and New Idea, not least because we think it’s also good for mums and girls to see female athletes doing something healthy and hopefully to encourage more young people to play sport, any sport … [It’s] much better value having a story on breakfast television than having a third back page in the sports section in terms of where your core audience comes from.

SECTION ONE

SECTION TWO

Qualitative and quantitative media analysis October 2008–July 2009 20 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Key metrics

Table 36: Key metrics, quantative media analysis, October 2008–July 2009

Key metrics Female sport Male sport Mixed sport Other sport Total volume of media reports 316 2931 103 266 Average favourability 53.4 51.4 52.0 53.8 Leading story focus (reports) Athlete performance (248) Athlete performance Athlete performance (49) Athlete performance (102) (1619) Leading message (mentions) Athletes are successful Athletes are successful Athletes are successful; Athletes are successful (65) (319) athletes are driven and/or (56) ambitious (5 each) Leading spokesperson Serena Williams, tennis Ricky Ponting, Australian John Coates, Australian Bart Cummings, horse (mentions) player (26) cricket team captain (140) Olympic Committee (6) trainer (47) Leading media (number of Channel Ten national (54) Channel Ten national Channel Ten national (16) Channel Ten Melbourne reports) (424) (53)

Gender overview

Chart 1: Volume of coverage by sport type

4 000 70.0

3 000 2 931 60.0 312

53.4 53.8 Favourability 51.4 52.0 2 000 50.0

Volume 1 957

1 000 40.0

316 662 266 103 192 188 0 122 30.0 Male sport Female sport Other sport Mixed sport

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

In line with Section One and the 1996 ASC study, The majority of coverage of all gender combinations throughout this analysis ‘male sport’ denotes activities was neutral in tone as a result of reports presenting a only men participate in (for example, men’s tennis), balanced view of successful and unsuccessful athletes, ‘female sport’ refers to activities only women participate or coverage simply reporting on the facts in a neutral in (for example, women’s tennis), ‘mixed sport’ includes fashion. However, coverage of male sport was the least activities in which both females and males participate in favourable on average. This can be mostly attributed (for example, mixed doubles tennis) and ‘other’ includes to coverage of male athlete behaviour, which will be sports where the primary participants are not people discussed further in this report. The two unfavourable (for example, horseracing — indeed, horseracing made reports on mixed sport focused on Pat Rafter and John up the vast majority of this coverage and, throughout Newcombe’s critique of Lleyton Hewitt’s performance this report, ‘other’ can be read to refer almost at the Hopman Cup, a mixed tennis event. There was exclusively to the horseracing industry). negligible unfavourable coverage of female or ‘other’ sport, and this coverage was more favourable overall than male sport or mixed sport. SECTION TWO 21

Share of voice Chart 2: Share of voice by volume and sport type Mixed sport Charts 2 and 3 show the share of voice of each sport Other sport 3% type by volume and duration. While there were clearly 7% more individual reports mentioning female sports than Female sport other sports, more air time was given to coverage of 9% other sports. Table 38 shows that reports on female sport had the lowest average duration of all the types of sport analysed, with reports on male sport having an average duration of 30 seconds longer than reports on female sport.

Augmenting the disparity in average duration, in some instances reporting on female competitions was added on to the end of more prominent reports about the corresponding male competition. For example: Male sport • Channel 7 Melbourne’s Seven News, on 4 July 2009, 81% discussed the men’s Wimbledon tennis tournament semifi nal results for 64 seconds before wrapping up with an 11-second mention of results in the Chart 3: Share of voice by duration and sport type women’s draw. Mixed sport Female sport 2% • Channel Nine Sydney’s National Nine News, on 6% 4 April 2009, reported on male cricketer Philip Other sport Hughes’s win of the Steve Waugh Medal, with a 8% duration of 26 seconds. The fi nal three seconds of this report noted that female cricketer Leah Poulton had won the Belinda Clark Medal.

• Channel Ten Sydney and Melbourne’s Ten News, as well as Late News with Sports Tonight (national), reported on the athletics meet in Melbourne in March 2009, giving 78 seconds to previews of events including male athletes Asafa Powell, Craig Mottram and Steve Hooker, and only 13 seconds to female athlete Sally McClelland. Male sport While they were relatively isolated, these instances 84% served to contribute to the disparity in duration of coverage between male and female sport, and to implicitly give male sport more signifi cance than Table 37: Share of voice by total duration and sport type female sport in Australian media. Sport type Duration (hh:mm:ss) Male sport 66:36:14 Other sport 6:23:00 Female sport 4:29:06 Mixed sport 1:57:10 Total 79:25:30

Table 38: Share of voice by average duration and sport type

Sport type Average duration Other sport 0:01:26 Male sport 0:01:22 Mixed sport 0:01:08 Female sport 0:00:51 22 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Story order All nine breaking news reports on NRL were broadcast between 7 and 10 March 2009 and focused on the Charts 4 and 5 show the volume and breakdown of allegations of sexual assault against Manly Sea Eagles sports by the order in which they appeared in the player Brett Stewart. Channel Nine included this as the sporting news section (on Channels 7, Nine and Ten, fi rst news report most often, while ABC1 did not report and SBS and ABC1 evening news bulletins) between this topic as the leading news story at all. 1 and 10 March 2009, for female and male sport, respectively. Chart 6 shows the running order of male These two topics — international terrorism and sports-related news reports when they appeared in sexual assault — unarguably locate these stories the main news section of the evening news bulletin. outside the realm of traditional sports reporting and It is signifi cant that no reports on female sport were within the realm of newsworthiness. However, despite included in the main news section. the complexity of the decisions made by producers to include these topics as leading stories, it is not Cricket and NRL were the dominant male sports that unreasonable to assume that had they not involved were reported on in the fi rst four reports of an evening. sporting identities they would not have been accorded All 22 breaking news reports on cricket aired between the same degree of prominence. That none of these 3 and 6 March 2009, in the wake of the terrorist items involved female athletes, teams or offi cials attack on cricketers and offi cials in Lahore. Channel Ten compounds the fi nding made in relation to duration most frequently included this report fi rst in the main (page 21) that female sport appears to occupy a blind news bulletin (eight reports), followed by Channel 7 spot in the news on Australian television. (fi ve reports). ABC1 only reported this news as the fi rst item once.

Chart 4: Female sport — sports coverage

Volume 012345

Sport 1 0

Sport 2 3 3

Sport 3 3 3

Sport 4 3 1 4

Sport 5 2 2

Sport 6 2 1 3

Sport 7 0

Sport 8 1 12

Sport 9 1 12

■ Surfing ■ Cricket ■ Golf ■ Netball SECTION TWO 23

Chart 5: Male sport — sports coverage

Volume 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100

Sport 1 70 3 7 5 3 1 89

Sport 2 35 9 20 11 6 2 3 11 88

Sport 3 13 14 1211 4 3 11 2 3 73

Sport 4 11 13 5 9 6 5 6 4 11 4 65

Sport 5 4 9 2 7 6 7 3 3 4 5 2 1 53

Sport 6 3 7 1 5 5 4 2 3 1 3 11 36

Sport 7 1 2 1 4 1 4 4 1 3 11 23

Sport 8 1 2 2 1 3 4 2 1 2 18

Sport 9 11 2 1 4 2 11

Sport 10 2 11111 7

■ Cricket ■ Football (soccer) ■ NRL ■ AFL ■ Basketball ■ Golf ■ Rugby union ■ Motor sports ■ Athletics ■ Surfing ■ Tennis ■ Rowing ■ Diving ■ American football ■ Cycling

Chart 6: Male sport — news coverage

Volume 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35

News 1 22 9 31

News 2 186 24

News 3 111 12

News 4 473

News 5 152 1 1

News 6 351 1

News 7 132

News 8 462

News 9 143

News 10 241 1

■ Cricket ■ NRL ■ Football (soccer) ■ AFL ■ Motor sports ■ Basketball 24 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Primary story focus The greatest proportion of athlete behaviour-focused reports discussed male sport (8%, compared to 2% Chart 7 shows the main focus of the television reports for female sport), with this coverage being least analysed, giving the overall context in which sport was favourable overall. discussed. Each report has only one story focus, but may discuss a number of different individual topics.

As can be expected, athlete performance was the main Nationality of athletes focus of television coverage of both male and female The reports analysed were designated as fi tting in one sport. Highlighting that coverage of female sport tends to of two categories: ‘Australian’ or ‘other’ (see Chart 8). be more results-driven whereas coverage of male sport is All reports that had a reference to an Australian athlete more constant across the sporting event cycle, male sport (no matter how brief) were included as ‘Australian’, while was comparatively over-represented in coverage focusing all reports referring exclusively to athletes of another on training and preparation (this made up 21% of coverage nationality were included as ‘other’. of male sport, but only 13% of coverage of female sport). While 16% of coverage of male sport focused Similarly, female sport was comparatively exclusively on the exploits of international athletes under-represented in coverage focusing on the and teams, 24% of coverage of female sport focused sporting industry, suggesting that female sport is on the performance of athletes of a nationality other not discussed in its commercial context in television than Australian. This would suggest that not only are coverage as much as horseracing (which made up female sports under-represented in Australian television almost all ‘other’ sport) and mixed sport (3% of news, but Australian female sports are particularly coverage of female sport focused on the sporting under-represented. industry, compared to 12% for male sport, 35% for other sport and 33% for mixed sport).

Chart 7: Primary focus of television report by sport type

2 000 70.0

1 619

1 500 60.0 Favourability

1 000 50.0 Volume

617

500 40.0 351 248 233 102 92 111 49 41 58 17 11 34 6 6 2110 8 0 30.0 Athlete Training and Sporting industry Athlete behaviour Athlete profile performance preparation

■ Volume — male sport ■ Volume — female sport ■ Volume — other sport ■ Volume — mixed sport Average favourability — male sport Average favourability — female sport Average favourability — other sport Average favourability — mixed sport

Chart 8: Coverage of nationality of athletes by sport type Volume 0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500 3 000

Australian 2 470 240 90 2 800

Other 46176 550

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport SECTION TWO 25

Text type which is a different kind of text with different norms and conventions. Moreover, their analysis was of US The categorisations of text type have been adapted from basketball, rather than a range of sporting disciplines Section One, and Table 39 shows the volume of each across television news media in Australia. The cultural included in this analysis. For the purposes of analysing and sport-specifi c differences in the coverage selected television, ‘news briefs’ denoted the 30-second reports for this analysis should be taken into account; all that provide a rapid round-up of results across a range departures from Vande Berg and Projansky’s fi ndings of sports in quick succession, and ‘feature’ referred to made here are not intended to undermine their reports with a long duration. approach but rather are the inevitable product of applying a framework designed for a particular text in a particular culture to a different text in a different culture. Narrative frame The ‘other’ narrative frame has been introduced for this analysis to avoid characterising reports inaccurately. Chart 9 shows the narrative frames deployed in These reports covered a variety of issues, including the television news reporting on sport, following the six terrorist attack on Sri Lankan cricketers in Pakistan, frames identifi ed by Vande Berg and Projansky (2003). the commercial aspects of the sporting industry, the Each report was allocated at least one narrative frame, involvement of fans in sport and the involvement of although, if appropriate, more than one narrative frame sporting identities in charities. could be chosen. Athletic prowess was the most prominent narrative From the outset it should be noted that Vande Berg and frame, and was used in 70% of coverage of male sport Projansky (2003) devised these frames for an analysis and 90% of coverage of female sport. While this could of sporting commentary rather than news reporting,

Table 39: Text type by sport type

Text type Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Other sport Total Match report 1 207 221 66 96 1 550 News report 1 022 49 20 91 1 182 Match preview 581 39 8 62 690 Profi le 56 2 1 8 67 Human interest 27 1 4 2 34 News brief 23 2 2 27 Comment/opinion 3 1 1 5 10 Interview 7 1 2 10 Feature 5 1 6

Chart 9: Narrative frames used in television reports by sport type

Volume 0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500

Athletic prowess 2 066286 62 2 414

Other 635 688

Agency 51964 602

Discipline 266 272

Adversity 258 285

Diaspora 54 57

Domestic role 43 50

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport 26 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

suggest that female athletes and teams are more Injuries were a common topic of sports reporting, likely than their male counterparts to be presented as and many of the reports deploying a narrative frame ‘heroes whose outstanding ability, expertise, courage, of ‘adversity’, for both genders, did so through the perseverance, dedication to goals, creativity, versatility context of injury and individuals pushing through pain and spectacular ability to perform under pressure and injury to succeed. However, other examples of enables them to succeed in winning competitions’ adversity included unexpected wins and the trials of (Vande Berg and Projansky 2003:29) than their male young athletes emerging into fi elds of elite athletes, counterparts, more likely it shows that the repertoire of for example: television news reporting on female sport in Australia [Compere:] After sending the Swans a DVD of his is quite limited to results. The data also suggest that playing talents just last year, former Canadian women need to participate in events successfully in order rugby player Mike Pyke will complete a remarkable to be deemed newsworthy, while their male counterparts achievement at the SCG on Sunday. receive much more sustained coverage of a range of training and preparation-related topics, as well as topics [Paul Roos, Sydney Swans coach:] Injury forced Mike only loosely connected to their sporting lives. Pyke to quit rugby union, he was looking for a new sport and a new challenge; it is a fantastic effort Examples of agency were invariably reports on a team from Mike to be playing his fi rst senior game so early or individual’s ability to determine their own success, in his development as an AFL footballer (Ten News, and this narrative frame was used almost equally in Channel Ten Sydney, 1 May 2009). reporting on both male and female sport (20% and 21%, respectively). The narrative frame of ‘agency’ covers Vande Berg and Projansky argued that discipline as a the same ground as ‘volition’, as used in Section One narrative frame is used by US basketball commentators as a measure of the agency, or lack thereof, accorded to depict female athletes ‘as subservient order-takers’, to the athlete or team (see page 15). Examples of which was not seen in coverage of male basketball reporting that portrayed athletes or teams in a position (2003:28, 34). However, Chart 9 shows that in of agency included: Australian television news coverage, male athletes were much more likely to be described by reporters • ‘Having spent most of his career fi ghting for ‘as children who need to be scolded, disciplined, attention, now Victor Darchinyan wants to cash in and given orders by expert adults’ (Vande Berg and on his world title success. The Armenian–Australian Projansky 2003:34) than their female counterparts returned home today as the fi rst man to collect all (9% of coverage of male sport used this frame, where three belts in the super fl yweight division, but he is only 0.3% of coverage of female sport — or one report hungry for more … “I can fi ght any weight division. — described the athletes in these terms). This was I feel my power, my power coming from every fi ght. the result of widespread reporting on the behaviour I’m ready for any champion … I’m not going to sit of Australian male athletes both on and off the fi eld. and defend my title. I wanna fi ght more berths. I Examples included, but were not limited to: want my name to become higher,” [says Darchinyan]’ (Late News with Sports Tonight, Channel Ten national, • the problematic drinking culture of AFL clubs and the 5 November 2008). AFL Players’ Association’s efforts to develop policy to address this • ‘While Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal ready themselves for tonight’s men’s fi nals, our women’s • the uncertain future of cricketer Andrew Symonds champion Serena Williams has already fl own out, following a series of alcohol-related incidents vowing to return and go back to back. Her fourth Australian Open title and tennis slam in total came • allegations of sexual assault against a group of almost too easily last night, disposing of Dinara players from the Balmain Ryde Eastwood Tigers, with Safi na in under an hour … Williams had her way in club offi cials and police taking action a 20-minute wipe out … the demolition got done in • claims of violence against women levelled against just 59 minutes’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, NRL player Greg Bird 1 February 2009). • disciplinary action taken against the Brisbane Lions’s Jared Brennan for head-butting another player

• NRL player Nate Myles’s suspension for six matches following behaviour described by Channel Ten newsreader Sandra Sully as ‘bizarre and sickening’ (Late News with Sports Tonight, Channel Ten national, 6 July 2009). SECTION TWO 27

Similarly, Vande Berg and Projansky (2003) argued that Visual analysis — studio backdrop diaspora (the necessity for athletes to move overseas in order to further their professional careers) and domestic Charts 10–12 show the qualitative content and narratives are exclusively used in commentary of female social distance of imagery accompanying the studio basketball in the United States. As with ‘discipline’, it introduction to television news reports on sport, would seem that Australian television news reporting of adapting the categories used to analyse print media sport challenges this trend: Chart 9 shows that a low imagery in Section One. volume of coverage described male athletes as needing As in Section One, both the studio backdrop in the to go overseas to further their careers, and that male introduction to television reports and the images in the athletes are presented in their domestic context (with reports themselves were analysed based on whether friends and families) more frequently than their female they were action, posed, glamour or domestic shots. counterparts. Examples of diaspora included references to various NRL players considering playing in Japan or Reinforcing the fi nding that television news coverage Europe in order to earn more money, while many male of female sport is more closely focused on events and athletes were pictured with their families (see Figure 5). results (as opposed to preparation or the lives of the athletes beyond sport), a higher proportion of studio Figure 5: Examples of male athletes presented in a backdrop imagery presented female athletes in an domestic context action shot compared to their male counterparts (31% and 25%, respectively).

The series of facial affects presented in Chart 12 can be understood as existing along a spectrum, with the more neutral ‘serious’ and ‘focused’ at one end, and the more intense ‘aggressive’, ‘sad’ or ‘despondent’, and ‘happy’ at the other end. Female athletes were more likely to be presented as ‘happy’ (14%) or ‘focused’ (17%) than male athletes (11% and 10%, respectively). Male athletes were more often presented as ‘sad’ or ‘despondent’ (no reports showed female athletes looking ‘sad’ or ‘despondent’ in the studio introduction), and twice as likely to be shown displaying ‘serious’ facial affect (7% of male sport coverage Lewis Hamilton as a child with his father (World News Australia, compared to 3% of coverage of female sport). These SBS national, 3 November 2008) fi ndings undermine the stereotype that women are more prone to emotional displays than men (as discussed in Section One, page 14), at least in the use of visual content in framing television news reports on sport.

Sea Eagles centre Steve Bell spends his grand fi nal preparation time with his family (Seven News, Channel 7 Sydney, 3 October 2008) 28 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 10: Image analysis — studio backdrop, by sport type

Volume 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900

Action shot 719 98 35 852

Posed shot 33419 361

Relationship/domestic shot 13

Posed action shot 12

Glamour/fashion shot 5

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 11: Social distance of image — studio backdrop, by sport type

Volume 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

Social 573 64 18 655

Intimate 438 35 11 484

Public 314 33 22 369

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 12: Emotional display — studio backdrop, by sport type

800 70.0

600 60.0 55.7

54.4 55.0 Favourability 53.4 54.1 54.0 54.2 52.5 52.1 51.6 50.0 49.5 400 50.0 333 Volume 33 293

217 40.0 200 172 40.0 180 49

124 128 43 53 86 29 22 9 6 44 10 6 3 1 0 28 30.0 Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport Happy Focused Serious Aggressive Sad/ despon- dent Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability SECTION TWO 29

Linguistic analysis — studio introduction Figure 6: Examples of gendered noun phrases in studio backdrop Charts 13–19 show the results of discourse analysis of the fi rst sentence spoken by a journalist in television news reporting on sports. The various tools used have been adapted directly from Section One.

In Section One, naming devices were analysed to identify to what extent stories drew attention to the gender of athletes and away from their performance (pages 13–14).

Only 8% of the total coverage analysed for this report contained gendered pronouns in the fi rst sentence, although it is interesting to note that this was slightly skewed towards discussions of female sport (11%, ‘King Roger’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 6 July 2009) compared to 8% for male athletes). This tendency to more frequently identify the gender of female athletes or competitions than that of male athletes or competitions in the opening sentence reinforces the notion that male sport is seen as normal and female sport as a novel exception. However, the majority of introductory sentences referred to gender-neutral sport or competition (see Chart 14), or mentioned individual athletes using their full names.

Diminutive noun phrases (‘girls’, ‘boys’ and ‘lads’, for example) were hardly ever used in the fi rst sentence of television coverage, although they were more likely to appear in coverage of female sport than coverage of ‘Woman winner’ (National Nine News, Channel Nine Sydney, 1 November 2009) male sport (0.3% of male sport, 2% of female sport).

Chart 13: Gendered naming devices — studio introduction, by sport type

Volume 0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Gendered pronoun 24034 277

Other noun phrase 3734 73

First name only 1814 33

Diminutive noun phrase 105 16

Abbreviated first name 5 7

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport 30 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

It was more common for gender-neutral naming devices The majority of emotion lexis used to describe to be used in studio introductions than gendered athletes’ behaviour in studio introductions was naming devices, with the sport or competition name, positive. As with the analysis of visual emotional team name or player’s position the most frequently display, this skewed towards coverage of female rather used. Examples of other gender-neutral noun phrases than male sport (25% and 16%, respectively). By used included ‘champions’, ‘movers and shakers’ and contrast, examples of negative emotion lexis, while ‘marquee names’. lower in volume, skewed towards coverage of male sport (7%, compared to 3% of coverage of female As introduced in Section One, emotion lexis is a sport). While negative emotion was not particularly measure of the emotions (positive or negative) common, coverage of men’s sport was more often displayed by, or attributed to, athletes and other framed in terms of the ‘anguish’ of male athletes. sporting agents in media coverage. Accordingly, emotion Examples (with emotive language bolded) included: lexis can serve as a linguistic (rather than visual) measure of the stereotype that women are more prone • ‘Disappointment for the Western Force today, to emotional displays than men (page 14). beaten convincingly by the Chiefs in New Zealand’ (Sports Tonight late edition, Channel Ten national, 6 March 2009).

Chart 14: Gender-neutral naming devices — studio introduction, by sport type

Volume 0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500

Sport/competition name 1 903188 2 148

Team name 1 415 1 459

Position 535 556

State/country name 497 536

Nationality 42269 501

Other noun phrase 176 191

Age reference 72 83

Gender-neutral pronoun 57 62

Family name only 45 60

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 15: Emotion lexis — studio introduction, by sport type

Volume 0 100 200 300 400 500 600

Positive 465 80 18 563

Negative 219 84 231

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport SECTION TWO 31

• ‘It’s been a sad 24 hours for the New Zealand • ‘Melbourne footballer Nathan Jones says he’s angry Warriors — the NRL club is in shock after rising and disappointed by a weekend bashing at the league star Sonny Fai was swept out to sea MCG that’s left his father with a broken nose and yesterday evening’ (World News Australia, SBS, ribs’ (National Nine News, Channel Nine Melbourne, 5 January 2009). 6 April 2009).

Chart 16: Emotivity — studio introduction, by sport type

1 200 70.0

925 900 60.0

54.2 53.9 Favourability 52.2 50.7 50.6 571 50.0 600 45.5 Volume 477

163 300 40.0

336 117 246 68 30 14 9 0 48 46 30.0 Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Positive Negative

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

Chart 17: Source of evaluation — studio introduction, by sport type

1 600 70.0

1 288

1 200 159 60.0

54.0 Favourability 52.0 51.8 800 50.0

Volume 48.9 764 45.0

400 40.0

365 128 67 76 39 1 0 51 30.0 Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Journalist Named source

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability 32 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 18: Target of evaluation — studio introduction, by sport type

800 70.0

702

97 59.2 600 559 60.0 55.7 57 55.6 53.7 53.3 53.4 Favourability 52.6 51.8 51.3 50.8 50.6 50.0 49.2 400 371 48.0 50.0 Volume 359

237 200 40.0 137 234 82 50 49 143 45 40 26 83 18 7 8 29 29 8 1 6 0 32 30.0 Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Female sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport Named person Team Event Other Unidentified sport Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

As introduced in Section One, emotivity is a measure sensationalist, audience interest in this information of whether an article evaluates, or presents a view stems from an investment in the careers of people, evaluating, an object (including events, people and such as Symonds, and concern about how their teams) as good or bad (page 14). Vital components behaviour can impact on them (and their teams) of the notion of emotivity are the source (who said it?) in a professional context. This investment in the and the target (who/what did they say it about?) of professions of male athletes does not appear to the evaluation. extend to female athletes.

Discussion of female sport in the fi rst sentence had a Following Section One, the third measure of evaluation higher proportion of positive emotivity; moreover, male traced in this analysis was ‘volition’, understood as a sport had a higher proportion of negative emotivity measure of agency or lack thereof (page 14). As noted (16% compared to 4% of female sport). In all sport, the in the discussion of narrative frames (pages 25–27), majority of fi rst-sentence evaluations were made by the ‘volition’ has a direct affi nity with the narrative frame journalists and were towards a named person or team. of agency, while ‘non-volition’ tends to accompany reports framing athletes as the subject of discipline. Cricketer Andrew Symonds was among the more frequent The majority of examples of volition in television news targets of negative emotivity. Examples included: coverage of sport were positive for both female and • ‘Cricketer Andrew Symonds is considering his male sport, although despite both genders receiving future in the sport after returning home from similar proportions of coverage, female athletes were England in disgrace’ (Seven News, Channel 7 more often reported as acting of their own wishes and Sydney, 6 June 2009). aiming for strong results (28%, compared to 21% for male athletes), and were less likely to be presented • ‘Troubled cricketer Andrew Symonds has returned in a position of non-volition than male athletes in the home staying tight-lipped about his latest studio introductions (1%, compared to 7%). It is likely indiscretion after being sent packing from England’ that this refl ects the greater use of the narrative frame (National Nine News, Channel Nine Melbourne, of discipline for discussions of male sport, which by 6 June 2009). extension, presents male athletes as subject to the Although there are debates about the value of this discipline and regulation of a higher power (such as the kind of reporting for male sport, the use of negative police or a league’s tribunal). evaluation to discuss male sport is further evidence that Australian television news employs a wider range of ways to discuss male sport. While it is undeniably SECTION TWO 33

Chart 19: Volition — studio introduction, by sport type

800 70.0

622 600 23 60.0

54.4 55.0 53.5 53.8 Favourability

400 47.9 50.0

Volume 387

43.3 219 200 40.0 95

212 90 88 54 24 32 0 36 36 30.0 Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Mixed sport Female sport Volition Non-volition Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

First-sentence coverage of male and female athletes in • ‘Well the initial response was subdued, but Michael a position of agency (bolded) included: Phelps is now paying a hefty price for that infamous photo showing him smoking marijuana’ (Ten News, • ‘Australian Samantha Stosur will be aiming for a Channel Ten Sydney, 6 February 2009). spot in the French Open semifi nals when she takes on Romanian teenager Sorana Cirstea tonight’ • ‘The AFL match review panel has sent Sydney player (ABC News, ABC1 Sydney, 3 June 2009). Brett Kirk straight to the tribunal, charged with making reckless contact with an umpire’ (Seven • ‘In just over an hour’s time, the Socceroos will News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 6 April 2009). be fi ghting for World Cup qualifi cation against Uzbekistan at the same stadium where their last World Cup dream came true’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 1 April 2009). Visual analysis — overall Charts 20–22 show the qualitative content and social • ‘The Australian test cricket team suddenly seems distance of imagery accompanying television news like a formidable force again’ (National Nine News, reports on sport, adapting the categories used to Channel Nine Sydney, 3 March 2009). analyse print media imagery in Section One. Meanwhile, examples of coverage depicting male Almost all reports showed at least two different athletes in a position of non-volition (bolded) in the fi rst social distances of images. This is to be expected sentence included: in television, where the head shot (intimate) is the • ‘Manly will be praying test fullback Brett Stewart standard shot for media conferences and interviews, is cleared to return this week from a four-game while public and social distances lend themselves to ban for drunken behaviour after slumping to their action footage. fourth straight loss’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Sydney, Reinforcing the observation made in the discussion 5 April 2009). of narrative frames earlier in this section, it was • ‘The future of Parramatta’s rugby league team not uncommon for male athletes to be pictured in a is under a cloud tonight with their boss Dennis domestic context, while the majority of coverage of Fitzgerald saying he can’t guarantee their survival’ both male and female athletes included some form of (National Nine News, Channel Nine Sydney, action sequence. 4 April 2009). 34 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 20: Image analysis — overall, by sport type

Volume 0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500 3 000

Action sequence 2 433271 90 2 794

Posed sequence 70965 795

Relationship/domestic sequence 82 85

Posed action sequence 49

Glamour/fashion sequence 19

Sexualised sequence 6

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 21: Social distance of image — overall, by sport type

Volume 0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500 3 000

Social 2 348240 76 2 664

Public 2 272247 86 2 605

Intimate 1 771164 61 1 996

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 22: Emotional display — overall, by sport type 2 800 70.0 65.0

2 100 58.5 60.0 57.8 56.1 54.7 54.4 54.0 54.0 Favourability 52.7 52.6 52.6 52.8 50.7 50.9 50.7 1 398 1 400 88 50.0 1 183 Volume 87 931 883 149 700 743 40.0 583 281 196 168 156 427 353 77 167 83 52 79 30 199 29 17 9 100 19 4 0 84 77 101 30.0 Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport Happy Focused Serious Enthusiastic Aggresive

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability SECTION TWO 35

While the continuous nature of television imagery makes it less sound to place much emphasis on the emotional displays of athletes presented in overall reporting (as opposed to the studio backdrop, where images are more carefully and deliberately selected), a higher proportion of coverage pictured female athletes as ‘happy’ or ‘focused’ (53% and 49%, respectively, compared to 48% and 40% for male athletes), while male athletes were more often shown as ‘serious’ (32%, compared to 24% for female athletes).

In the analysis of footage overall, displays of Action shot of surfer Stephanie Gilmore (Sports Tonight late ‘aggression’ were not as specifi c to male sport as edition, Channel Ten national, 6 March 2009) might have been expected (with about 7% of coverage of each gender including such a display).

Figure 7: Examples of imagery accompanying television news reports

A serious Greg Bird walks to court (National Nine News, Channel Nine Sydney, 6 July 2009)

Serena Williams looking aggressive (ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 5 July 2009)

Australian rugby league players celebrate their win at the World Cup (Seven News, Channel 7 Sydney, 3 November 2008)

Boxer Victor Darchinyan in a domestic context (Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 5 November 2008)

Intimate shot of golfer Anna Rawson (Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 5 February 2009) An upset Adelaide United player (ABC News, ABC1 Sydney, 6 November 2008) 36 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Linguistic analysis — overall Other gendered noun phrases were common. In coverage of female sport this included frequent references to Charts 23–29 show the results of discourse analysis Serena and Venus Williams as sisters, while in reporting of television news reporting on sport. The various tools on male sport, this included a variety of phrases such as used have been adapted directly from Section One. ‘king of surfi ng’, ‘good guy’, ‘favourite son’, ‘bloke’, ‘the big fella’ and ‘elder statesman’. In overall coverage of female sport, a higher proportion of coverage mentioned female athletes by their fi rst Coverage of male sport was more likely to mention the name only, compared to overall coverage of male sport. name of a particular team, while in coverage of female This can be accounted for, at least in part, by the sport, the most frequent naming device was the sport frequent references to Serena Williams as ‘Serena’ to or competition name. This is likely to refl ect the relative avoid confusion with her sister Venus. Meanwhile, the dominance of individual pursuits in coverage of female use of diminutive noun phrases in overall coverage was sport compared to male sport, where team-based proportionally equal (mentioned in 2% of coverage of contests dominate (see Chart 30, where tennis is each gender). over-represented in coverage of female sport, and cricket, NRL and AFL dominate for male sport).

Chart 23: Gendered naming devices — overall, by sport type

Volume 0 50 100 150 200 250

First name only 18444 7 235

Other noun phrase 157 47 12 216

Diminutive noun phrase 637 72

Abbreviated first name 107 17

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 24: Gender-neutral naming devices — overall, by sport type

Volume 0 200 400 600 800 1 000 1 200 1 400 1 600 1 800 2 000

Team name 1 65648 1 731

Sport/competition name 1 504162 64 1 730

Family name only 1 224116 1 359

Position 1 05749 1 118

Nationality 846137 1 005

State/country name 58739 646

Age reference 43151 496

Other noun phrase 37352 435

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport SECTION TWO 37

As with emotion lexis in the studio introductions of The proportions of positive and negative emotivity in reports, a higher proportion of positive emotion was overall television coverage of female sport and male displayed by, or attributed to, female sport than to male sport accentuated those of the studio introductions sport overall (35% and 24%, respectively), while a higher (see page 32). Female athletes were more often proportion of negative emotion was displayed by, or evaluated positively in the main body of reports attributed to, male athletes (12% for males and 3% for (60%, compared to 49% for male athletes), while females). The more signifi cant proportion of negative male athletes were more often evaluated negatively emotion lexis used in describing male athletes adds to (25%, compared to 7% for female athletes). There the trend in coverage identifi ed throughout this report was a higher proportion of evaluations from named that the stereotype of male stoicism is challenged in spokespeople, which is not surprising as studio television news coverage of sport, and that television introductions are generally more focused on news has a broader inventory of narratives with which to journalists’ evaluations or facts, while the body of the discuss male sport. report is more likely to include spokespeople giving their own evaluations.

Chart 25: Emotion lexis — overall, by sport type

Volume 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900

Positive 700 110 32 842

Negative 346 367

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 26: Emotivity — overall, by sport type

2 800 70.0

2 100 60.0

54.8

53.5 54.0 Favourability 52.4 1 449 50.6 1 400 48.8 50.0 Volume

912 727 700 40.0 204

493 189 437 92 47 21 16 0 96 86 30.0 Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Positive Negative

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability 38 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Examples of positive emotivity (in bold) included: • ‘Two-time world surfi ng champion Stephanie Gilmore is on track to claim her fi rst Roxy pro title since her • ‘Kangaroo greats have hailed Billy Slater’s rookie year in 2005. Gilmore revelled in the clean performance as one of the best ever for Australia in one-metre swirl, easily outperforming former world last night’s humiliating defeat of England … [coach champion Chelsea Hedges … The 21-year-old had Ricky Stewart] described the performance as “Some a nearly perfect ride’ (Ten News, Channel Ten of the best individual pieces of talent I’ve seen Sydney, 6 March 2009). at this level of football”’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Sydney, 3 November 2008).

Chart 27: Source of evaluation — overall, by sport type

2 000 70.0

1 612 1 500 176 58.6 60.0

54.8 Favourability 52.1 52.2 52.4 50.0 1 000 50.0

Volume 973

514 500 99 40.0

238 463 186 93 49 177 21 10 0 93 30.0 Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Journalist Named source

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

Chart 28: Target of evaluation — overall, by sport type

2 400 70.0

60.7 1 800 60.0

55.5 54.8 55.0 F

53.3 avoura 52.5 52.6 52.7 51.8 51.3 52.0 52.0 50.0 50.2 1 123 50.0

1 200 bilit

Volume 139 y 812

614 600 40.0 547 368

370 137 218 117 56 26 33 19 196 29 8 120 83 65 7 0 80 30.0 Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Female sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport Named person Team Event Other Unidentified sport Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability SECTION TWO 39

Examples of negative emotivity included reporting on journalists have ways of framing male athletes and Roosters player Nate Myles’s six-match suspension, sport that do not apparently exist for female athletes including the State of Origin, and the $50 000 fi ne to and sport. Moreover, as noted previously, the focus his club for a drunken incident at a hotel on the New on athlete behaviour, which much negative emotivity South Wales coast: about male athletes is related to, is derived from an engagement with the professional path of athletes that • Reporter John Hill stated: ‘It’s another blow for the such behaviour jeopardises. Roosters and the NRL, which has been plagued all season by drunken players behaving badly’. As noted in the discussion of volition in fi rst sentences • ARL chairman Colin Love described the situation as (pages 32–33), volition has a direct relationship with ‘very disappointing’. the narrative frame of agency, while non-volition lends itself to reports framing athletes as the subject of • League expert Wayne Pearce criticised the whole discipline. As in the analysis of fi rst sentences, female code, saying ‘I don’t think it’s just the Roosters. athletes were more often presented in a position of There is a bit too much alcohol, [from] drug to volition (38%, compared to 28% for male athletes), and binge levels across the code; [it’s] something that’s they were less likely to be presented in a position of got to change’ (Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, non-volition than male athletes in overall reports (3%, 6 July 2009). compared to 10%). This again mirrors the greater use Negative emotivity was also used in discussions of male of the narrative frame of discipline for discussions of athletic performance, such as: male sport that present male athletes as subject to the discipline and regulation of a higher power. Two of Australia’s greatest tennis players have warned Lleyton Hewitt to change his game or give it Examples of volition (in bold) included: away … as Hewitt arrived in Perth for the Hopman • ‘The New South Wales Swifts are looking to Cup, Pat Rafter and John Newcombe both dished out re-write the history books again this year with some blunt advice … ‘He can’t play the way he was an unprecedented fourth consecutive netball playing seven or eight years ago. It won’t cut it out premiership’ (Sports Tonight late edition, there,’ [said Pat Rafter]. (Sports Tonight, Channel Ten Channel Ten national, 6 March 2009). national, 2 January 2009). • ‘Serena smashes Safi na to claim her tenth Grand Again, while examples of negative evaluation such Slam title’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, as these do not necessarily do the sport or athletes 1 February 2009). any favours, it shows that Australian television news

Chart 29: Volition — overall, by sport type

1 600 70.0

1 200 60.0

55.0 54.9

54.0 Favourability 52.7 835 800 48.4 50.0

Volume 46.0

480

400 40.0 287 117 314 122 111 65 36 11 5 0 57 59 30.0 Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Volition Non-volition

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability 40 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

• ‘Wakeboarding is a relatively new sport in Australia (24 reports), cycling and golf, as well as the team- and one man has ensured the evolution maintains based sport of netball (mentioned in 36 reports overall, pace. [Josh Sanders has] secured the sport’s exclusively about women). Tennis, golf and cycling future down under. In 2003 Josh helped establish are sports with male competitions as well, therefore Australia’s own pro tour, to create opportunities the volume of coverage of these sports as played by that didn’t exist when he was starting out. females is likely to be a product of a journalist being Josh is now starting out on a new endeavour: present to cover both male and female competitions. a pro wakeboard school based right here on the In contrast, the majority of cricket, Australian rules Shoalhaven. He’s going to show the next generation football and rugby league covered is predominantly just how it’s done’ (Sports Tonight, Channel Ten in male competitions. This is unsurprising due to the Sydney, 4 January 2009). expense of team sports and the infrastructure they require, both of which are more readily available for Meanwhile, examples of non-volition (bolded) included: male sports given the core male audience for sport • ‘Golf’s wild child John Daly has revealed he’s been (see Section Five for more details). Individual sports banned from playing on the US Tour for bringing can subsist on the talent of a few individuals which, negative press to the game. He was already when that talent is proven, can lead to sponsorship and suspended when he smashed a fan’s camera in other forms of funding. Female sport as a spectacle is Australia last month. The fi nal straw appears to have only relatively recent, whereas male team sports are been his arrest for drunkenness outside a Hooters historically established. restaurant’ (National Nine News, Channel Nine Sydney, 1 January 2009). Leagues

• ‘The exile of North Melbourne champion Wayne Chart 31 shows the leagues mentioned in coverage, Carey from Arden Street looks to be over … While a largely mirroring the dominant sports shown in Chart 30. role with the football department is unlikely, [North Melbourne chairman James] Brayshaw has fl agged Socioeconomic factors a possible mentoring position for Carey with North Chart 32 shows a variety of socioeconomic factors Melbourne’s younger players’ (ABC News, ABC1 affecting media coverage of sport and athletes in Melbourne, 5 March 2009). Australia. Female jockey Claire Lindop’s status as the This further reinforces the fi nding that although women fi rst woman to win the Victoria Derby resulted in a are framed more favourably, a broader spectrum of relatively high volume of reports on horseracing (‘other narratives is used to frame discussions of male sport sport’) that had a specifi c focus on gender. Reports and athletes than female sport and athletes. often began with an opening sentence noting Lindop’s ‘history-creating win’ (for example, ABC News, ABC1 Sydney, 2 November 2008). Leading issues Event results and preparation Sport Chart 33 shows the number of times a range of While the reporting of male sport was far more topics related to event results and preparation were prevalent than that of female, mixed or other sport, mentioned in the coverage analysed, broken down by the majority of that coverage was of few sports; gender. Unsurprisingly, the results of events were the particularly the team sports cricket, Australian rules most frequently discussed topic of reports, reinforcing football, rugby league and football (soccer). As would the media focus on end results over ongoing coverage be expected, coverage of Australian rules football was of before and after events. These reports made up a more prominent in Melbourne, while rugby league was higher proportion of coverage of female sport (68%) more prominent in Sydney. Coverage of cricket, on compared to that of male sport (47%), while reports that the other hand, was spread more evenly across the referred to training and preparation made up a greater markets, which can be attributed to most reports being proportion of coverage of male sport (26%) compared to about the national representative side as opposed to female sport (12%). In fact, in all areas except ‘results’ local or state teams in Australia (it should be noted, and ‘family support’ (8% of reports on female sport however, that cricket coverage sometimes extended to noted the support of the athlete’s family, compared domestic competitions). to 4% of reports on male sport), there was a greater proportion of discussion of male sport than female The range of female sports mentioned in coverage sport, demonstrating that (in addition to a greater was comparatively narrow, and primarily extended to variation in the more subtle ways of framing the two the individual sports of tennis (where women were genders) there is a greater variety of topics discussed in discussed almost as frequently as men), surfi ng relation to male sport than female sport. SECTION TWO 41

Chart 30: Sports most reported by sport type Volume 0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700

Cricket 6488 656

Australian rules football 459 464

Rugby league 438 438

Football (soccer) 394 402

Tennis 182163 24 369

Motor sports 246 16 262

Horseracing 256 256

Rugby union 188 189

Golf 15522 177

Cycling 7618 100

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport ■ Other sport

Chart 31: Leagues most reported by sport type

Volume 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

AFL (Australian Football League) 406 406

NRL (National Rugby League) 293 293

A-League (men’s football [soccer]) 164 164

Super 14 (men’s rugby union competition) 63 63

V8 Supercars (motor sports) 56 60

Formula 1 (motor sports) 55 55

Sheffield Shield (men’s first-class cricket) 55 55

PGA (Professional Golfers’ Association) 54 54

NBL (National Basketball League) 31 31

ATP (Association of Tennis Professionals) 26 26

■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport 42 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 32: Socioeconomic factors reported by sport type Volume 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50

Indigenous athlete 424 46

Regional/amateur sport 29 101 2 42

Specific focus on gender issues 1 135 19

Athlete with disability 3 58

■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport ■ Other sport ■ Female sport

Chart 33: Topics related to event results and preparation reported by sport type

Volume 0 200 400 600 800 1 000 1 200 1 400 1 600 1 800

Results 1 374 214 126 31 1 745

Training/fitness 74939 59 861

General performance 44135 504

Community support 23059 309

Family support 11526 160

Partner support 80 87

Drug testing 25

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Other sport ■ Mixed sport

Corporate It should be noted, however, that the 333 male sport reports mentioning management had an average Chart 34 shows the volume of coverage mentioning favourability of 49.8 (slightly unfavourable), highlighting a range of topics related to the corporate side of that much of this discussion was of the disciplinary sport, broken down by gender. Female athletes role sporting organisations, leagues and management and sport were rarely discussed in this context, play when athletes misbehave on or off the fi eld. By contributing to the overall impression that in extension, this demonstrates that reports on athlete television news coverage female sport is not behaviour are not purely motivated by the news value discussed on the same level as male sport; it of sensationalism, and that they refl ect the status receives less air time, is often presented as accorded to male athletes as professionals and role the novel exception to the male sport rule, and models, and the impact of their behaviour on their future is not presented as the established, corporate, professional prospects. It also refl ects, to some extent, professional pursuit that male sport is. the visibility of administrative infrastructure built up to legitimise and support male sport as a profession. SECTION TWO 43

Chart 34: Topics related to corporate aspects of sport reported by sport type

Volume 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Management 33327 8 370

Sponsorship 545 5 66

Marketing 32 36

Government investment 9187

Australian Institute of Sport 4

■ Male sport ■ Other sport ■ Mixed sport ■ Female sport

Leading messages proportionately more prominent in coverage of female sport (21%, compared to 11%; 7%, compared to 6%; Chart 35 shows the leading messages mentioned in and 8%, compared to 4%). television news coverage of sport between October 2008 and July 2009, broken down by gender. The Unsurprisingly, given the range of reports on male leading message in the coverage was ‘athletes are athletes behaving badly on and off the fi eld discussed successful’, indicating the news value of winning in throughout this report, the three leading behaviour- Australian media coverage. related unfavourable messages — ‘athletes are badly behaved off fi eld’, ‘athletes are badly behaved on fi eld’ Underscoring the notion that women are presented as and ‘athletes are not positive role models’ — were proportionately more successful in coverage, with the almost exclusively mentioned in coverage of male sport. subtext that they must be more successful to secure any media coverage, the top three messages were

Chart 35: Leading messages of coverage by sport type Volume 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450

Athletes are successful 31965 56 445

Athletes are driven and/or ambitious 171 23 41 240

Athleticism emphasised 10624 134 Favourable

Athletes are positive role models 32 37

Athletes are badly behaved off field 152 159

Athletes are badly behaved on field 97 102

Athletes are outclassed 577 64 Unfavourable

Athletes are not positive role modles 33 33

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Other sport ■ Mixed sport 44 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Leading spokespeople overwhelmingly male. Furthermore, while the majority of spokespeople who discussed female sport were Chart 36 shows the leading spokespeople quoted or female, the margin is much smaller compared to the cited in the coverage analysed, broken down by gender. corresponding proportion of males who were quoted Refl ecting the dominance of cricket, Australian cricket discussing male sport (85%, compared to 99%). team captain Ricky Ponting was the most prominent spokesperson overall. The leading spokespeople for Chart 39 shows the proportion of family members horseracing (‘other sport’) were both male, reinforcing quoted in coverage, broken down by gender. Although the dominance of men in that fi eld despite the success male athletes were more often shown with their of female jockey Claire Lindop, discussed previously families, it is interesting to note that family members (page 40). (including parents, partners, siblings and grandparents) were quoted in a higher proportion of coverage of Refl ecting the dominance of tennis in coverage of female sport. female sport and emphasising that success is a crucial ingredient for female sport to secure television Table 40: Gender of spokespeople quoted by sport type news coverage, Serena Williams was the leading Sport Gender # % female sporting fi gure quoted, although her comments Female sport 258 100.00 appeared in a low volume of reports overall. Female 220 85.27 It is notable that the leading spokespeople in coverage Male 38 14.73 of mixed sport were male, indicating the pervasive Male sport 3 749 100.00 dominance of men in sports administration and the Female 56 1.49 focus of reporting on personalities such as Lleyton Hewitt, rather than female athletes in coverage of Male 3 693 98.51 mixed events such as the Hopman Cup. Mixed sport 128 100.00 Female 35 27.34 Table 40 and Charts 37−38 show the gender of Male 93 72.66 spokespeople quoted in coverage of each kind of sport, highlighting that those who spoke (and who were Other sport 392 100.00 implicitly or explicitly presented in positions of authority) Female 52 13.27 about male sport, mixed sport and other sport were Male 340 86.73

Chart 36: Leading spokespeople quoted by sport type

200 80.0

70.0

64.9 140 11 57.9 57.4 56.3 55.0 F avoura 51.8 50.5 50.0 50.0 100 50.0 bilit Volume y 115

46 47 18 33 27 26 10 17 17 29 21 10 6 55 14 13 17 15 0 7 20.0 jockey organiser Committee Chic Henry, Blake Shinn, Blake tennis player tennis player tennis player tennis player tennis player horse trainer Summernats John Coates, team captain Ricky Ponting, Ricky Lleytin Hewitt, Lleytin Roger Federer, Venus Williams, Venus Bart Cummings, Serena Williams, Australian cricket Samantha Stosur, Australian Olympic Male sport Other sport Female sport Mixed sport

■ Favourable comment ■ Neutral comment ■ Unfavourable comment Average favourability SECTION TWO 45

Chart 37: Spokesperson gender share of voice — Chart 38: Spokesperson gender share of voice — female sport mixed sport

Male 15%

Female 27%

Female Male 85% 73%

Chart 39: Family members quoted versus non-family sources (all other sources)

100

75

50 94.96% 97.70% 98.64% 98.44% Per cent Per

25

5.04% 0 2.30% Female sport Other sport Male sport Mixed sport

Family member Non-family source 46 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Leading media Leading by-lines and comperes Chart 40 shows the breakdown of coverage, by volume, Chart 41 shows the leading journalists who reported on on each of the stations analysed. While coverage of sport in the coverage analysed, broken down by the gender female sport comprised 9% of the total, ABC1 Sydney of the participants of the sport in question. All four leading and Melbourne both had 11% proportions of reporting journalists were male and the anchor for their respective on female sport, while Channel Nine Sydney and networks (Peter Wilkins on ABC1, Brad McEwen and Rob Channel Ten Melbourne were at the lower end of the Canning on Channel Ten, and Alex Cullen on Channel 7). spectrum, with 6% each. While individual journalists were tracked for this analysis, where reports were read by the anchor, the anchor’s name was recorded.

Chart 40: Television station coverage by sport type Volume 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400 450 500 550

Channel Ten national 424 54 29 16 523

Channel Ten Sydney 360 39 29 12 440

Channel Ten Melbourne 349 28 53 8438

SBS 313 33 13 10 369

Channel 7 Melbourne 277 32 40 354

Channel 7 Sydney 284 22 19 10 335

ABC1 Sydney 242 34 1310 299

ABC1 Melbourne 235 32 17 8 292

Channel Nine Melbourne 217 25 32 10 284

Channel Nine Sydney 229 17 21 14 281

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Other sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 41: Leading journalists reporting on sport by sport type 240 70.0

189 187 59.3 180 8 11 58.3 60.0

55.0 Favourability 53.3 53.3 54.0 53.2 52.5 52.5 50.8 51.1 51.3 51.0 50.3 50.6 50.0 120 113 50.0 103

Volume 93 163 13

38 60 88 40.0 36 68 19 19 22 22 42 66 15 7 16 16 5 33 3 1 0 14 13 12 7 6 30.0 Male Female Other Mixed Male Female Other Mixed Male Female Other Mixed Male Female Other Mixed sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport Peter Wilkins Brad McEwan Rob Canning Alex Cullen

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability SECTION TWO 47

Table 41 breaks down sporting discipline by the While individual stations have clear specialists on male leading journalists reporting on female sport. Again, sports (for example, Channel Nine’s Danny Weidler can all leading journalists were male and were the be expected to report on NRL, while ABC1’s Duncan anchor for their respective programs, rather than an Huntsdale can be relied on to report on cricket), fewer on-the-ground reporter. journalists could be identifi ed as specialists on female sports, with the attendant historical and statistical It is signifi cant that although 250 single journalists knowledge such specialisation brings. reported on male sport, only 82 single journalists reported on female sport. This is in part a refl ection One-quarter of the 250 journalists reporting on of the fact that male sport tends to more readily spill male sport were female, while one-fi fth of journalists over into the main news bulletin of an evening news reporting on female sport were female. This indicates report. It also refl ects that a wider range of journalists, that not only is the content of sport reporting skewed sport specialists or otherwise, is better equipped and to male sport, but the journalists producing it are more frequently commissioned to report on male sport. predominantly male.

Table 41: Leading journalists reporting on female sport by sport discipline

Journalist Sport Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Volume Average favourability Peter Wilkins 14 22 36 53.2 Tennis 6 15 21 51.9 Golf 2 5 7 52.9 Surfi ng 2 2 4 52.5 Athletics 2 2 55.0 Basketball 1 1 65.0 Swimming 1 1 7.0 Rob Canning 7 15 22 52.5 Netball 5 6 11 53.2 Tennis 3 3 5.0 Surfi ng 1 1 2 55. Triathlon 1 1 6.0 Golf 1 1 5.0 Basketball 1 1 5.0 Cycling 1 1 5.0 Swimming 1 1 5.0 BMX 1 1 5.0 Brad McEwan 3 16 19 51.3 Tennis 1 6 7 5.7 Golf 5 5 5.0 Sports — general 2 2 5.0 Netball 1 1 2 55. Cricket 1 1 5.0 Gymnastics 1 1 5.0 Surfi ng 1 1 6.0 Ken Sutcliffe 8 7 15 54.7 Tennis 6 5 11 11 55.5 Cricket 1 1 1 55.0 Golf 1 1 1 5.0 Sports — general 1 1 1 5.0 Skiing 1 1 1 55.0 48 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Placement Trend analysis Chart 42 shows where an athlete, team or sporting Charts 44−47 show the volume of coverage of male, offi cial was referred to in a report (‘prominent mention’ female, mixed and ‘other’ sport, broken down by time. refers to a fi rst-sentence mention, or three or more This highlights that although all sport coverage is references in the body of the report). ‘Lead story’ in primarily event-driven, male sport receives much more Chart 43 shows the volume of reports that appeared in consistent levels of reporting year-round than female the fi rst fi ve minutes of programming. sport, mixed sport or other sport (horseracing). This reinforces the fi nding that all sport other than male sport tends to require results to generate media.

Chart 42: Placement of mention of athlete, team or offi cial in a report by sport type Volume

0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500 3 000 3 500

First sentence/introduction 2 605 215 202 69 3 091

Prominent mention 255 401

Passing mention 71 124

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Other sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 43: Volume of additional report features Volume 0 500 1 000 1 500 2 000 2 500 3 000 3 500 4 000

Graphics 2 920 313 264 103 3 600

Spokesperson quoted 1 812 179 180 65 2 236

Lead story 208 249

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Other sport ■ Mixed sport SECTION TWO 49

Chart 44: Volume of female sports coverage, October 2008 to July 2009

160 70.0

120 60.0 56.7 55.8 55.0 54.2 54.2

53.6 53.6 Favourability 52.4 52.9 51.0 80 50.0 Volume 60 55 56

42 40 40.0 31 21 22 11 12 6 0 30.0 Oct 08 Nov 08 Dec 08 Jan 09 Feb 09 Mar 09 Apr 09 May 09 Jun 09 Jul 09

Volume Average favourability

Chart 45: Volume of male sports coverage, October 2008 to July 2009

1 000 70.0

750 60.0

53.1 Favourability 52.5 52.1 50.9 51.3 51.2 50.9 50.7 50.6 50.1 500 50.0 Volume 382 335 310 283 277 292 266 258 263 265 250 40.0

0 30.0 Oct 08 Nov 08 Dec 08 Jan 09 Feb 09 Mar 09 Apr 09 May 09 Jun 09 Jul 09

Volume Average favourability 50 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 46: Volume of mixed sports coverage, October 2008 to July 2009

100 70.0

60.0 60.0 75 60.0

53.8 Favourability 51.4 51.6 51.7 50.7 50.0 50.0 50.6 50 50.0 Volume 38

25 40.0

14 13 14 8 6 3 4 2 1 0 30.0 Oct 08 Nov 08 Dec 08 Jan 09 Feb 09 Mar 09 Apr 09 May 09 Jun 09 Jul 09

Volume Average favourability

Chart 47: Volume of other sports coverage, October 2008 to July 2009

280 70.0

210 60.0 56.4

53.5 Favourability 52.2 51.5 51.7 50.3 142 49.5 50.0 50.0 50.0 140 50.0 Volume

70 40.0

31 23 18 15 13 9 66 3 0 30.0 Oct 08 Nov 08 Dec 08 Jan 09 Feb 09 Mar 09 Apr 09 May 09 Jun 09 Jul 09

Volume Average favourability SECTION ONE

SECTION THREE

Qualitative and quantitative analysis of the Beijing Olympic Games August 2008

‘Where would Australia be in these games without the women? They ruled in the pool, pulled off Australia’s only cycling medal and they’ve come good on the track.’ Lisa Millar, ABC News, ABC1 Melbourne, 20 August 2008

‘For the fi rst time since 1932 our women won all the gold.’ Jim Wilson, Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 17 August 2008 52 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Key metrics

Table 42: Key metrics, quantitative media analysis, Beijing 2008 Olympic Games

Key metrics Female sport Male sport Mixed sport Total volume of media reports 147 152 72 Average favourability 58.1 55.6 53.2 Leading story focus (reports) Athlete performance (113) Athlete performance (126) Athlete performance (26) Leading message (mentions) Athletes are successful (83) Athletes are successful (79) Athletes are successful (19) John Coates, Australian Olympic Leading spokesperson (mentions) Stephanie Rice, swimmer (17) Michael Phelps, US swimmer (8) Committee (12) Leading media (number of reports) Channel 7 (54) Channel 7 (57) Channel 7 (31)

Gender overview As in year-round television news reporting on sport, coverage of female sport during the Olympics was With regard to coverage of the Beijing 2008 Olympic slightly more favourable than coverage of male sport. Games, in addition to denoting events that men and Rather than the behaviour of male athletes resulting in women participate in together (including sailing and less favourable coverage of male sport (as is the case equestrian), ‘mixed sport’ coverage included the extensive for year-round coverage), this increase was the result reporting on the opening and closing ceremonies. of female athletes being presented as slightly more successful, or less unsuccessful. The Beijing Olympics had the highest number of female competitors, who comprised 43% of participants overall.

Chart 48: Volume of coverage by sport type

280 70.0

210 58.1 60.0 55.6

53.2 Favourability 154 147 140 50.0

Volume 44 62

72 70 40.0

97 82 44

23 0 30.0 Male sport Female sport Mixed sport

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability SECTION THREE 53

Share of voice Chart 50: Share of sport by duration and sport type Chart 49 shows the share of voice of each gender by Mixed sport volume, that is, the number of reports that mentioned 19% Male sport either male sport, female sport or mixed sport. Male 42% sport was mentioned in a higher number of reports. However, Chart 50 and Table 43 show that, unlike year- round coverage of sport, the duration of these reports was often not as long as those reports discussing female sport; instead, the two genders received an equal proportion of time in television coverage.

Chart 49: Share of voice by volume and sport type

Female sport Mixed sport 39% 19% Male sport 42% Table 43: Share of voice by duration and sport type

Sport type Duration (hh:mm:ss) Female sport 3:01:20 Male sport 2:59:46 Mixed sport 2:18:08 Total 8:19:14

Female sport 39% Primary story focus Chart 51 shows the main focus of each television news report on the Beijing Olympics. As in year-round coverage of sport, reporting on the Olympics was largely event-driven as athlete performance was the

Chart 51: Primary focus of television report by sport type

200 70.0

150 60.0

126 113 Favourability

100 50.0 Volume

50 40.0

26 21 23 22 20 7 3 4 3 3 1 1 0 30.0 Athlete performance Training and preparation Sporting industry Athlete profile Athlete behaviour

Volume — male sport Volume — female sport Volume — mixed sport Average favourability — male sport Average favourability — female sport Average favourability — mixed sport 54 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

main theme of most coverage analysed. However, Text type there was a greater interest in the training and preparation of female athletes at the Olympics than Table 44: Text type by sport type in year-round coverage. Male Female Mixed Text type sport sport sport Total News report 152 144 70 366 Nationality of athletes Profi le 1 1 2 As in Section Two, any time an Australian athlete Match preview 1 1 2 was mentioned in a report, the primary nationality Human interest 1 1 2 of the report was automatically listed as Australian. News brief 1 1 So, while Chart 52 accurately depicts the volume Match report 1 1 of reports in which Australian athletes were mentioned, it is not as accurate a depiction of when international athletes were mentioned (when they were discussed in the same report as an Australian Narrative frame athlete, the default for this section was ‘Australian’). In line with the more equal volumes of coverage of male Nevertheless, free-to-air television news coverage of and female sport at the Olympics, Chart 53 shows the Olympics in Australia overwhelmingly favoured a more equitable distribution of the narrative frames stories that included Australian athletes and almost used to describe athletes and teams when compared to entirely reported on international athletes only in year-round coverage. the context of their competition with Australians. Coverage of outstanding male international athletes As would be expected, ‘athletic prowess’ was the most Asafa Powell and Michael Phelps was the main frequently used frame, although ‘adversity’ was more exception to this trend. prominent in Olympics coverage as a result of higher

Chart 52: Coverage of nationality of athletes by sport type

Volume 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Australian 147 145 69 361

Other 712

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 53: Narrative frames used in coverage by sport type

Volume 0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Athletic prowess 119 117 43 279

Adversity 25 25 757

Other 19 23 14 56

Agency 25 17 11 53

Domestic role 14 12 430

Diaspora 36

Discipline 34

■ Female sport ■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport SECTION THREE 55

stakes injury or other adversity posed. However, there Visual analysis — studio backdrop was negligible discussion of athletes in the context of ‘discipline’ in Olympics coverage. Charts 54–56 show the qualitative content and social distance of imagery accompanying the studio Female Olympians were more likely to be presented introductions to television news reports on the in a position of agency than their male counterparts Olympics, adapting the categories used to analyse and their year-round female sporting counterparts. The print media imagery in Section One. domestic lives of both female and male athletes were discussed (that is, reference made to family and loved In line with Section One, both the studio backdrop in the ones) approximately ten times more in coverage of the introductions to television reports and the images in the Olympics than in year-round coverage (where 1.3% of reports themselves were analysed based on whether they coverage of female athletes and 1.5% of coverage of were ‘action shots’, ‘posed’, ‘glamour’ or ‘domestic’. male athletes used a ‘domestic’ narrative frame, while Although Section One fi nds that press articles had an in coverage of the Olympics, these proportions were almost 50–50 split between action shots and posed 8% and 10%, respectively). shots (page 9), this analysis found that action shots were more commonly used than posed shorts in the background of Olympics story introductions.

Chart 54: Image analysis — studio backdrop, by sport type

Volume 0 1020304050

Action shot 23 19 749

Posed shot 10 10 10 30

Glamour/fashion shot 22

Posed action shot 1 12

Relationship/domestic shot 2 2

Sexualised shot 11

■ Female sport ■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 55: Social distance of image — studio backdrop, by sport type

Volume 01020304050

Social 20 13 14 47

Intimate 17 9 733

Public 6 9 318

■ Female sport ■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport 56 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 56: Emotional display — studio backdrop, by sport type

60 70.0

65.0 65.0 62.7 61.7 45 58.8 60.0 56.9 57.5 55.0 55.0

54.3 Favourability 53.3

30 50.0 30 50.0 4 Volume

16 15 12 12 40.0 25 7 2 3 7 10 9 9 5 2 3 2 2 2 1 1 1 0 2 2 2 2 30.0 Female Mixed Male Female Male Mixed Male Mixed Male Mixed Male Mixed sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport Happy Focused Serious Enthusiastic Relieved

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

In Olympics coverage the most common type of posed or sexualised shots in the studio backdrop of television shot showed the athlete celebrating after receiving their reports on the Olympics. Interestingly, there were more medal. Reports often showed a montage of both action images of women (36) in the studio backdrop than of and posed shots in the studio backdrop. These images men (29). were most often at a social or intimate distance. This is not surprising given that they are in the studio backdrop, which only takes up part of the screen, along with the Linguistic analysis — studio introduction anchor, making the content of public images diffi cult to see. This is consistent with the fi ndings of Section Charts 57–63 show the results of discourse analysis of One that 50% of images were at a social distance. As the fi rst sentence spoken by the journalist in television in Sections One and Two, there were minimal glamour news reporting on the Olympics. The various tools used have been adapted directly from Section One.

Chart 57: Gendered naming devices — studio introduction, by sport type

Volume 010203040

Gendered pronoun 21 11 335

Other noun phrase 15 4 120

Diminutive noun phrase 7 7

First name only 2 2

■ Female sport ■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport SECTION THREE 57

As outlined in Sections One and Two, the objective of Figure 8: Example of the use of the phrase ‘golden girls’ analysing naming devices was to identify to what extent stories drew attention to the gender of athletes and away from their performance. In line with Section One, 24% of all studio introductions in the coverage of the Olympics analysed for this report contained a gendered naming device. The split between gendered naming devices used in female sport and male sport was, however, pronounced (27%, compared to 10%, respectively).

While only coverage of female sport contained diminutive noun phrases (for example, ‘girls’), it should be noted that the use of the word ‘girl’ in these seven cases was generally used in phrases such as ‘golden girl’ or ‘glamour girl’. Consistent with Section One, these were most likely used for alliterative effect rather than Use of the phrase ‘golden girls’ in television news (Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 11 August 2008) an attempt (deliberate or otherwise) to portray females as younger or softer than males (which is consistent with remarks made on page 13), or to ‘infantilise’ Unsurprisingly, given the international nature of the athletes (which Vande Berg and Projansky [2003] the Olympics, in the coverage it was more likely for suggested is the function of diminutive noun phrases presenters to mention the nationality of athletes, in sporting commentary). such as: As the analysis of year-round coverage found, in coverage • ‘the American superstar’ of the Olympics it was more common for gender-neutral • ‘Australian rowers have started a big week of naming devices than gendered naming devices to be celebrations’ used in studio introductions. As there are a number of competitors and sports in the Olympics that are not • ‘Australia’s water polo women played a nail-biter widely discussed in general sports programming, it was against bitter rivals Hungary’ more likely for the sport or team name to be mentioned. • ‘Australia has just won 13th Olympic gold medal’

A number of ‘family name only’ mentions that appeared in • ‘Australian Jared Tallent has delivered one of the the caption displayed on the studio backdrop made puns surprise performances of the Beijing Games’. of the athletes’ family names (see Figure 9).

Chart 58: Gender-neutral naming devices — studio introduction, by sport type

Volume 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Sport/competition name 57 43 23 123

Nationality 30 29 25 84

State/country name 16 19 641

Team name 9 14 629

Other noun phrase 6 7 11 24

Gender-neutral pronoun 2 7 716

Family name only 5148

Position 7113

Age reference 2

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport 58 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Figure 9: Examples of family names made into puns in Consistent with Section Two, the majority of emotion studio backdrops lexis used to describe athletes’ behaviour in studio introductions in coverage of the Olympics was positive. In contrast to the analysis of year-round sport coverage, only 2% of fi rst sentences in reports on the Olympics included references to negative emotion lexis (compared to 7% of year-round coverage), underscoring the up-beat nature of Olympics coverage on Australian television news. As with gender-neutral naming devices, the majority of mixed sport mentions of positive emotion appeared in reports on the opening and closing ceremonies and Australian Olympians in general, without specifying gender. These included phrases such as ‘while our Olympians will be bursting with pride when they march into the Bird’s Nest stadium, they’re already ‘Rice bubbles’ (National Nine News, Channel Nine Melbourne, basking in the thrill of last night’s offi cial welcome’ 13 August 2008) (National Nine News, Channel Nine Melbourne, 8 August 2008) and ‘Australia’s swimmers are confi dent’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 1 August 2008).

A slightly higher proportion of both positive and negative emotions appeared in studio introductions for female sport than for male sport (which could be interpreted as giving some support to the stereotype that women are presented as displaying more emotion than men). Some examples of positive emotion attributed to female sport included: ‘tears of joy as a lifelong Olympic dream is realised’ (Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 12 August 2008) and ‘Stephanie Rice says she is overwhelmed after being chosen to carry the Australian fl ag’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 23 August 2008). ‘Mills and Boomers’ (Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 6 August 2008) Although there were minimal examples of negative emotion in the studio introductions of television coverage of the Olympics, the majority of these were in While mixed sport had the highest number of other discussions of female sport, with both image captions gender-neutral terms, such as ‘stars’ and ‘heroes’, this and spoken words used for full effect. For example, was due to these phrases being used in coverage of the introductory sentence ‘Hockeyroo Fiona Johnson is the opening and closing ceremonies, not coverage of devastated about being the fi rst Aussie sent home due specifi c mixed sports. Examples included ‘Australia’s to injury’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 4 August stars of the pool have just arrived in Beijing’ and 2008) was accompanied by the picture in Figure 10. ‘home-grown heroes’.

Chart 59: Emotion lexis — studio introduction, by sport type

Volume 0 5 10 15 20 25 30

Positive 10 117 28

3 151 Negative

■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport ■ Male sport SECTION THREE 59

Figure 10: Example of negative emotion used in Most reports that contained emotivity in the studio studio backdrop introduction also contained an evaluation elsewhere in the report. As the analysis of year-round television news coverage of sport found, there was a higher proportion of positive emotivity in discussion of female sport; moreover, male sport had a higher proportion of negative emotivity. With all sport, the majority of evaluations were made by the journalists and were towards a named person or team. However, there were a higher number of evaluations of teams in coverage of mixed sport, as the majority of this coverage was devoted to the anticipation and refl ection of teams’ performances during the opening and closing ceremonies, respectively.

‘Injury blow’ (Seven News, Channel 7 Melbourne, 4 August 2008)

Chart 60: Emotivity — studio introduction, by sport type

60 70.0

62.1 61.5 45 60.0 40

54.4 Favourability 7 51.3 51.7 50.0 30 47.5

Volume 24

6 18 33 15 40.0 9 18 8 2 6 8 4 3 2 0 22 30.0 Female sport Male sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Positive Negative

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

Chart 61: Source of evaluation — studio introduction, by sport type

80 70.0

60.8 58.8 60.0 60 59.2 60.0 Favourability 46 52.5

40 10 50.0

Volume 30

9 20 18 40.0 35 9 19 4 7 2 1 0 2 30.0 Female sport Male sport Mixed sportMixed sport Male sport Journalist Named source

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability 60 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 62: Target of evaluation — studio introduction, by sport type

40 70.0

63.5 61.8 62.5 30 60.0 57.5 56.1 55.6

54.3 Favourability 23 52.5 52.5 50.0 50.0 20 5 19 50.0 18 1 46.7 Volume 1 3 14 6 1 10 40.0 18 9 8 15 6 1 6 11 3 4 3 3 6 2 2 22 3 44 1 0 2 2 2 1 30.0 Female Male Mixed Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Mixed Male Mixed sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport Named person Team Unidentified sportsperson Event Other

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

Chart 63: Volition — studio introduction, by sport type

60 70.0

60.5 45 58.3 60.0

53.0 52.5 Favourability 31

30 5 50.0

Volume 46.3

20 3 15 40.0 26

17 5 4 2 2 2 3 0 30.0 Female sport Male sport Mixed sportFemale sport Male sport Volition Non-volition

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

The majority of examples of volition in coverage of the Visual analysis — overall Olympics were positive for both female and male sport — although despite both genders having similar proportions Charts 64–66 show the qualitative content and social of coverage, female athletes were more often reported as distance of imagery accompanying television news acting of their own wishes and ‘aiming for’ strong results reports on the Olympics, adapting the categories used in the studio introductions. However, of the small number to analyse print media imagery in Section One. of examples of negative volition, female sport was more often described in these terms. SECTION THREE 61

Chart 64: Image analysis — overall, by sport type

Volume 0 50 100 150 200 250 300

Action sequence 119 130 36 285

Posed sequence 37 24 12 73

Relationship/domestic sequence 20 18 40

Glamour/fashion sequence 48

Sexualised sequence 4 7

Posed action sequence 2

■ Female sport ■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 65: Social distance of image — overall, by sport type

Volume 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350

Public 132 125 52 309

Social 119 120 49 288

Intimate 85 84 41 210

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 66: Emotional display — overall, by sport type

200 70.0 67.5 65.4 62.5 61.7 60.9 59.2 150 58.8 60.0

55.1 55.4 54.3 53.8 Favourability 52.1 108 50.0 50.4 50.0 100 50.0 25

Volume 80

19 57 46 40.0 50 39 81 26 28 60 25 15 15 12 13 14 29 22 8 11 10 19 22 6 6 3 10 11 9 8 13 0 6 5 7 6 30.0 Female Male Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Mixed Female Mixed Male Female Female Male Mixed sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport Happy Focused Serious Enthusiastic Crying (joy)

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability 62 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Unsurprisingly, as this analysis focuses exclusively on In contrast to year-round reporting on sport, and television coverage, the majority of reports contained lending some support to the stereotype that women are images. Only 41 reports did not contain an image likely to display more emotion than men (as mentioned that could be analysed (that is, the whole report was in Section One, page 8, and discussed in relation to the compere or anchor speaking to camera, with no emotion lexis throughout this report), it is worth noting accompanying vision). Images overall had a higher that Chart 66 demonstrates that the visual content of proportion of domestic sequences than the studio television coverage of the Olympics more frequently backdrop, and these were largely either family watching the showed women emoting (‘happy’ or ‘crying’ with joy), events from home or athletes embracing family members while male athletes were more likely to be shown in less after their win. There was also a higher proportion of action emotive footage (‘focused’, ‘serious’ or ‘enthusiastic’). sequences than posed sequences, with almost all reports Chart 55, which provides the same information for showing some footage of the event. studio introductions of television news reports on the Olympics, similarly shows that women were more often A high proportion of reports showed at least two shown displaying ‘happiness’. different social distances of images, which is not surprising given that television reports are put together with a variety of framed shots in order to maintain Linguistic analysis — overall audience interest. There was a higher number of Charts 67–73 show the results of discourse analysis glamour or sexualised shots than in the studio backdrop of television news reporting on the Olympics. The (such as in Figure 11). various tools used have been adapted directly from Figure 11: Examples of glamour shots in television news reports Section One. Consistent with Section Two, a higher proportion of Olympics coverage mentioned an athlete by their fi rst name only in overall coverage of female sport than male sport. This is not necessarily due to the fact that females are more often referred to by their fi rst names only, but possibly that the female Olympic athletes are considered more well known than their male counterparts. In contrast to the analysis of year-round reporting on sport, which found equal proportions of diminutive noun phrases in overall coverage of men and women, in the coverage of the Olympics the volume of diminutives was greater in reports on female sport.

The sizeable difference in the volume of diminutive noun phrases used for women compared to men cannot be ignored: the very use of diminutives suggests that, consciously or otherwise, women in sport are not presented by the media as seriously as men in sport. Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 21 August 2008 However, as noted in relation to the use of gendered naming devices for studio introductions, the majority of diminutive noun phrases were used in reports on the Australian women’s swimming squad and appeared to be used for alliterative effect, with phrases such as ‘glamour girl’ and ‘golden girls’. The concentration of the word ‘girls’ to describe this squad suggests that (whether politically correct or not) this has become a generally accepted way of referring to the athletes.

The high proportion of the use of other noun phrases such as ‘women’ or ‘men’ was more likely due to comperes having to differentiate between the events that have both female and male versions, than the use of the phrases to emphasise whether men or women were competing (for example, the ‘women’s K4’, the ‘men’s hockey team’, the ‘women’s water polo team’ Ten News, Channel Ten Melbourne, 11 August 2008 or the ‘men’s 100-metre freestyle’). SECTION THREE 63

Only 70% of the total coverage of the Olympics compared to the studio introductions. A high proportion analysed mentioned the sport or competition name of this coverage of female sport focused on Australian in either the studio introduction or the body of the female swimmers. report. It is likely that this was due to the assumption The use of an age reference when reporting on that when using team names such as Hockeyroos and Olympic athletes was more common in television Socceroos the sport that was being discussed was news reports discussing female sport (59% of total presumed to be obvious. age references), with the female swimmers described There were more uses of family name only in discussion as ‘young women’ and the basketball team labelled of male sport compared to female sport during the ‘young stars’. A number of these references were in Olympics, although the difference in proportion is reports focused on Australian diver Melissa Wu, who not as large as for fi rst name only mentions. There won a gold medal at the age of 16. Coverage of male was also a higher number of mentions of athletes sport had a smaller proportion of age references, with as ‘stars’, ‘champions’ and ‘heroes’ for both male shooter Michael Diamond and rower James Tomkins and female sport, when looking at the overall result described as ‘veterans’, while the ages of swimmer

Chart 67: Gendered naming devices — overall, by sport type

Volume 0 102030405060

Other noun phrase 23 30 558

First name only 21 11 537

Diminutive noun phrase 21 2241

Abbreviated first name 5 5

■ Female sport ■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 68: Gender-neutral naming devices — overall, by sport type

Volume 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

Sport/competition name 67 56 26 149

Nationality 64 51 26 141

Family name only 45 34 10 89

Team name 31 36 976

Other noun phrase 28 20 15 63

State/country name 31 22 659

Age reference 14 32 854

Position 105 16

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport 64 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Michael Phelps, walker Jared Tallent and diver used in the coverage of female sport and more Matthew Mitcham were all discussed as added negative emotivity in the coverage of male sport. context in reporting on their successes. There was also a higher proportion of evaluations from named spokespeople. This is not surprising as As with emotion lexis in the studio introductions studio introductions are generally more focused on of reports, a higher proportion of both positive and journalists’ evaluations or facts, while the body of the negative emotion was displayed by, or attributed to, report is more likely to include spokespeople giving female athletes than male athletes overall. Some their own evaluations. The difference in the proportion athletes were described as being ‘distressed’ and of evaluations targeting named sources compared to ‘disappointed’ with their performances, while others teams was more pronounced in overall coverage than in were described as being ‘elated’ and ‘over the moon’, studio introductions. most often when they won medals unexpectedly. As with the studio introductions, in overall coverage of There was less difference in the proportion of the Olympics, reports that mentioned volition were more positive emotivity in overall television coverage of likely in discussions of female sport. The proportions female sport and male sport than in the studio of non-volition were, however, more equal in overall introductions. However, as with year-round coverage, coverage than in studio introductions, in which female there was still a higher proportion of positive emotivity sport was more often discussed.

Chart 69: Emotion lexis — overall, by sport type

Volume 0 102030405060708090

Positive 34 26 20 80

Negative 14 11 126

■ Female sport ■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 70: Emotivity — overall, by sport type

120 70.0

61.5 59.6 90 60.0 78 55.9

54.0 Favourability 71 52.9 14 14 60 49.2 50.0 Volume

32 31 30 64 56 7 40.0 13 20 13 7 18 6 11 10 0 5 30.0 Female sport Male sport Mixed sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Positive Negative

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability SECTION THREE 65

Chart 71: Source of evaluation — overall, by sport type

180 80.0

70.0 150 70.0 63.9

59.4 120 57.6 58.5 60.0 54.1 Favourability

90 50.0 81 78

Volume 7 16 21 60 40.0

33 30.0 30 53 59 15 18 13 5 16 14 9 5 00 20.0 Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Female sport Male sport Mixed sport Journalist Named source

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

Chart 72: Target of evaluation — overall, by sport type

120 70.0

58.2 59.8 58.7 90 60.0 56.7 55.2 55.0 55.0 54.2 72 53.6 Favourability 52.5 66 50.0 50.0 20 60 14 50.0 Volume 41

9 30 25 40.0 50 50 22 23 5 5 10 30 12 6 11 15 11 332 2 3 0 30.0 Male Female Mixed Female Male Mixed Female Mixed Male Mixed Female Mixed sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport Named person Team Event Unidentified Other sportsperson Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability 66 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 73: Volition — overall, by sport type

120 70.0

62.1

90 58.2 60.0 56.3

53.8 Favourability 52.7 62 60 8 50.0 51 Volume 48.0 14

30 40.0 53 20 35 13 9 12 5 4 5 9 6 0 5 4 30.0 Female sport Male sport Mixed sport Male sportFemale sport Mixed sport Volition Non volition

Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Average favourability

Leading issues focus on the individual successes of athletes such as Stephanie Rice, Leisel Jones and Libby Trickett.

Sport It is noteworthy that the ratio of men’s to women’s Australia’s traditional strength in swimming is refl ected coverage was fairly even across most of the leading in Chart 74, which shows that this sport received the Olympic sports, with the exceptions of football, rowing most media coverage during the Beijing Olympics. and water polo. The disproportionately large volume The strength of the women’s squad is also refl ected in of reports about women’s water polo, compared to the equal proportion of women’s and men’s coverage men’s water polo, was a result of media interest in the (49 and 51 reports, respectively). However, men’s extremely close match between Australia and Hungary. swimming events were more likely to be mentioned Only two of the sports in Chart 74 were ‘female as part of broader daily Olympics updates, whereas appropriate’ sports as discussed by Jones (2003); coverage of women’s swimming events tended to Jones, Murrell and Jackson (1999), and Daddario (1998) (cited in Section One, pages 6–7): diving and swimming.

Chart 74: Sports most reported by sport type

Volume 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Swimming 51 49 31 131

Athletics 37 36 16 89

Basketball 27 37 11 75

Hockey 24 22 551

Sports — general 11 12 25 48

Cycling 21 16 744

Rowing 18 4 14 36

Diving 8 10 422

Football (soccer) 18 19

Water polo 13 317

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport SECTION THREE 67

The fi ndings of this analysis, therefore, challenge the to the relative success of the women’s swimming squad, traditional stereotypes referred to in Section One, as and might have been reversed had the male members well as offer opportunities for reconceptualising such of the team been more successful. stereotypes in the light of actual media interest identifi ed While there were more reports about community support in this study. for female athletes, this appeared to be mostly a function of the success of the athletes themselves and Event results and preparation did not suggest any particular gender bias. Unsurprisingly, results were the most frequently discussed topic in coverage related to events. These Corporate reports were evenly divided between male and female The high proportion of reports about management in sport, with no discernable difference in the style or Chart 76 is due to the opening and closing ceremonies content of reports. falling into this category. The media’s interest in Reports that mentioned family support were also Stephanie Rice also contributed to the large number of divided equally between genders. Although there is reports in this category as a result of her selection to some evidence that family support for female athletes carry the Australian fl ag during the closing ceremony. was more pronounced, this can be somewhat attributed

Chart 75: Topics related to event results and preparation reported by sport

Volume 0 50 100 150 200 250

Results 95 98 14 207

Family support 45 43 10 98

Training/fitness 30 36 19 85

Partner support 19 20 645

Community support 18 13 11 42

General performance 14 12 10 36

Drug testing 4 3 411

■ Female sport ■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 76: Topics related to corporate aspects of sport reported by sport type

Volume 0 5 10 15 20 25

Management 11 6 421

Sponsorship 4 3 18

Government investment 451

Marketing 143

Australian Institute of Sport 121

■ Mixed sport ■ Female sport ■ Male sport 68 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

The likelihood that the International Olympic Committee of the Olympics tends to focus on athletes who win would not include softball in the London Games also medals or those who were expected to win but did contributed to management being the most frequently not. Interestingly, there were more mentions of the mentioned corporate topic. unfavourable message ‘athletes were outclassed’ in coverage of male sport, which may suggest that the Stephanie Rice was discussed in two of the marketing media had higher expectations of Australia’s male reports about female sport, as well as the mixed sport athletes which, in itself, could suggest some bias. marketing report. Libby Trickett and Sally McClelland were also mentioned in the marketing context, indicating Considering that the split of medal wins between males that although there was only a low volume of reports of and females was even, it is not surprising that the this nature, there was some degree of media interest number of times athletes were presented as successful in discussing female athletes in a sporting industry was also evenly split. Consistent with the discourse context. This contrasts with the analysis of year-round analysis of volition, female athletes were more often television news coverage, in which there were no reports described as being ‘driven’ or ‘ambitious’, while male on female athletes in this context. All reports in this athletes had their athleticism emphasised more often. category focused on the potential earning power of The athletic prowess of male athletes most often these athletes following their Olympics successes. appeared in reporting on Michael Phelps and Asafa Powell. The behaviour of female athletes both on and off the fi eld was not discussed unfavourably in media Leading messages coverage, while the behaviour of male athletes was. In comparison to year-round television news reporting on The leading message in Olympics coverage was sport, however, only a small number of reports focused ‘athletes are successful’, followed by ‘athletes are on behaviour. outclassed’. This is unsurprising as media coverage

Chart 77: Leading messages of coverage by sport type

Volume 0 25 50 75 100 125 150 175 200

Athletes are successful 79 83 19 181

Athletes are driven and/or ambitious 12 20 537

Athleticism emphasised 134 17 Favourable

Athletes handle pressure well 4

Athletes are outclassed 2213 5 40

Athletes are badly behaved on field 2

Government support of sport is insufficient 2

Athletes are badly behaved off field 1 Unfavourable

Athletes do not handle pressure well 1

Athleticism downplayed 1

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport SECTION THREE 69

Chart 78: Volume of leading favourable and unfavourable messages by sport type, 3 to 26 August 2008

25

20

1

9 15 8 8 11 10

Volume 6 10 3

2 1 4 7 1 11 10 4 5 9 3 3 1 1 8 6 8 2 2 5 77 1 6 2 5 1 4 2 4 2 4 3 333 3 2 2 2 1 11 1 11 1 1 0 1 11 3/08/2008 4/08/2008 7/08/2008 8/08/2008 9/08/2008 3/08/2008 4/08/2008 7/08/2008 8/08/2008 9/08/2008 10/08/2008 11/08/2008 12/08/2008 13/08/2008 14/08/2008 15/08/2008 16/08/2008 17/08/2008 18/08/2008 19/08/2008 20/08/2008 21/08/2008 22/08/2008 23/08/2008 24/08/2008 25/08/2008 26/08/2008 10/08/2008 11/08/2008 12/08/2008 13/08/2008 14/08/2008 15/08/2008 16/08/2008 17/08/2008 18/08/2008 19/08/2008 20/08/2008 21/08/2008 22/08/2008 23/08/2008 24/08/2008 25/08/2008 26/08/2008 Athletes are successful Athletes are outclassed ■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Leading spokespeople Australian Olympic Committee head John Coates was the leading spokesperson for mixed sport, with the Chart 79 shows the leading spokespeople quoted majority of his comments made about the opening and in the coverage analysed, broken down by the closing ceremonies. US swimmer Michael Phelps’s gender of the sport they discussed. The dominance dominance in the pool led to him being the leading of Australian female swimmers during the Beijing spokesperson in the coverage of male sport, followed Olympics is emphasised by the fact that two of the three by surprise medal winner Jared Tallent and retiring leading female spokespeople were female swimmers. swimmer Grant Hackett.

Chart 79: Leading spokespeople quoted by sport type

40 70.0 65.9

61.8 61.4 60.6 61.3 30 60.0 57.3 55.6 55.0

53.3 Favourability

20 50.0 17 Volume

7 12 11 11 9 10 40.0 5 88 9 77 9 3 10 8 6 3 6 6 5 4 2 3 2 0 1 1 30.0 Stephanie Penny Libby John James Kevin Rudd, Michael Jared Grant Rice, Taylor, Trickett, Coates, Tomkins, Australian Phelps, Tallent, Hackett, swimmer basketballer swimmer AOC rower Prime swimmer walker swimmer Minister Female sport Mixed sport Male sport

Favourable Neutral Average favourability 70 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 80: Spokesperson gender share of voice — Chart 81 shows the number of quotes attributed to mixed sport family members in coverage of the Olympics, broken down by the gender of the sport they discussed. As in year-round television news sports coverage, family Female members (including parents, partners, siblings and 34% grandparents) were quoted in a higher proportion of coverage of female sports.

Chart 81: Volume of family members quoted, by sport type

60 56

50

Male 40 66% 34

30 Volume The higher proportion of male spokespeople in the coverage of mixed sport is, in part, because Jacques 20 Rogge and John Coates were frequently quoted as representatives of their respective Olympic committees 10 in the coverage of the opening and closing ceremonies. 4 This points to the fact that, when participation is taken out of the equation, the administration of sport is 0 Female sport Male sport Mixed sport presented by the media as a male-dominated domain.

Table 45 shows that in the coverage of female sport more than one-quarter of spokespeople were male, Leading media while in the coverage of male sport, less than 15% of commentators were female. Coupled with Chart 80, Chart 82 shows the breakdown of coverage, by these fi gures highlight that men are more likely to be volume, broadcast on each of the stations analysed. positioned as having something interesting to say about Unsurprisingly, given it was the offi cial Olympics station, sport — male sport, female sport or the administrative Channel 7 had the highest volume of coverage overall. side of sport — than women. All stations analysed had a similar proportion of coverage of male and female sport during the Olympics, Table 45: Gender of spokespeople quoted by sport type which is signifi cantly different to the proportion in Sport Gender # % general sports coverage, in which there were few mentions of female sport across all stations. Female sport 261 Female 191 73 Male 70 27 Male sport 229 Female 31 14 Male 198 86 Mixed sport 173 Female 58 34 Male 115 66 SECTION THREE 71

Chart 82: Television station coverage by sport type

Volume 0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160

Channel 7 Melbourne 57 54 31 142

ABC1 Melbourne 35 33 13 81

Channel Nine Melbourne 31 29 15 75

Channel Ten Melbourne 31 31 13 75

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Table 46: Favourability of television station coverage by sport type

Sport type Station Favourable Neutral Unfavourable Volume Average favourability Male sport 82 62 10 154 55.6 Channel 7 Melbourne 29 24 4 57 56.1 ABC1 Melbourne 20 12 3 35 56.0 Channel Ten Melbourne 14 15 2 31 54.4 Channel Nine Melbourne 19 11 1 31 55.6 Female sport 97 44 6 147 58.1 Channel 7 Melbourne 32 19 3 54 56.5 ABC1 Melbourne 24 8 1 33 58.6 Channel Ten Melbourne 22 8 1 31 60.5 Channel Nine Melbourne 19 9 1 29 57.9 Mixed sport 23 44 5 72 53.2 Channel 7 Melbourne 12 19 31 54.4 Channel Nine Melbourne 7 8 15 54.7 Channel Ten Melbourne 2 9 2 13 51.9 ABC1 Melbourne 2 8 3 13 50.0 72 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Leading by-lines and comperes other analysed networks being an on-the-ground reporter who was sent to Beijing to cover the Olympics. Chart 83 shows the leading journalists who reported on the Olympics, broken down by the gender of the sport they reported on. Four of the fi ve leading journalists Placement were male, with ABC1’s Lisa Millar the leading female Chart 84 shows where an athlete, team or sporting journalist. Interestingly, two of the fi ve leading journalists offi cial was referred to in a report. ‘Lead story’, as were from the same network (Lisa Millar and Peter shown in Chart 85, indicates the volume of reports that Wilkins from ABC1), with one journalist from each of the appeared in the fi rst fi ve minutes of programming.

Chart 83: Leading journalists reporting on sport by sport type

40 70.0

61.3 60.0 59.6 30 60.0 56.9 57.5 57.2 55.8 56.1 56.5 55.2 55.0 Favourability

21 51.0 48.8 49.4 48.0 20 18 50.0

Volume 16 16 8 15 5 14 14 2 2 13 13 13 5 2 3 5 5 10 4 5 40.0 8 8 7 2 12 12 3 13 5 5 4 10 10 9 8 5 7 8 5 4 5 3 4 0 30.0 Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed Female Male Mixed Male Female Mixed Male Female Mixed sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport Peter Wilkins Michael Usher Lisa Millar Jim Wilson Max Futcher

Chart 84: Placement of mention of athlete, team or offi cial in a report by sport type Volume 0 50 100 150 200

First sentence/introduction 73 83 35 191

Prominent mention 50 32 24 106

Passing mention 31 32 13 76

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Chart 85: Volume of additional report features Volume 0 50 100 150 200 250 300 350 400

Graphics 146 150 70 366

Spokesperson quoted 112 109 53 274

Lead story 62 59 19 140

■ Female sport ■ Male sport ■ Mixed sport SECTION THREE 73

Trend analysis

Chart 86: Volume of female sports coverage, 1 to 26 August 2008

28 80.0

66.7 66.7 62.5 61.7 62.5 60.7 60.0 60.0 60.4 21 58.3 60.0 53.3 53.6 52.5 51.9 52.9 50.0 50.0 50.0 50.8 50.6 Favourability

40.0 Volume 14 13 40.0 12 12 12 11

99 88 8 8 7 7 7 6 20.0

3 33 3 2 2 1 0 0.0 1/08/2008 2/08/2008 3/08/2008 4/08/2008 5/08/2008 6/08/2008 7/08/2008 8/08/2008 9/08/2008 10/08/2008 11/08/2008 12/08/2008 13/08/2008 14/08/2008 15/08/2008 16/08/2008 17/08/2008 18/08/2008 19/08/2008 20/08/2008 21/08/2008 22/08/2008 23/08/2008 24/08/2008 25/08/2008 26/08/2008

Volume Average favourability

Chart 87: Volume of male sports coverage, 1 to 26 August 2008

28 70.0

65.0 62.5 61.3 61.9 58.2 60.0 21 58.0 56.4 55.0 53.5 Favourability 52.5 52.0 51.0 51.4 50.8 50.0 50.0 50.0 50.0 49.4 14 14 49.3 50.0 12 12

Volume 11 10 10 10 9 8 88 7 7 7 6 40.0 55 5 4 2 1 0 30.0 1/08/2008 2/08/2008 3/08/2008 4/08/2008 5/08/2008 6/08/2008 7/08/2008 8/08/2008 9/08/2008 10/08/2008 11/08/2008 12/08/2008 13/08/2008 14/08/2008 15/08/2008 16/08/2008 17/08/2008 18/08/2008 19/08/2008 20/08/2008 21/08/2008 22/08/2008 23/08/2008 24/08/2008 25/08/2008 26/08/2008

Volume Average favourability 74 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 88: Volume of mixed sports coverage, 1 to 26 August 2008

28 70.0 68.3 65.0

60.7 21 60.0 56.7

53.3 Favourability 52.5 52.5 52.5 51.3 50.0 50.0 50.0 50.0 50.0 50.0 50.0 50.0 50.0 49.4 14 50.0

Volume 48.3 45.0 9 7 7 7 40.0 5 44 4 4 33 3 3 3 2 2 22 2 1 1 1 0 30.0 1/08/2008 2/08/2008 3/08/2008 4/08/2008 5/08/2008 6/08/2008 7/08/2008 8/08/2008 9/08/2008 10/08/2008 11/08/2008 12/08/2008 13/08/2008 14/08/2008 15/08/2008 16/08/2008 17/08/2008 18/08/2008 19/08/2008 20/08/2008 21/08/2008 22/08/2008 23/08/2008 24/08/2008 25/08/2008 26/08/2008

Volume Average favourability SECTION ONE

SECTION FOUR

Quantitative media analysis January–December 2008 76 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Key fi ndings • The three journalists who wrote most frequently about female sportspeople or teams were Amanda The analysis in this section identifi es and quantifi es Lulham, Warren Partland and Robert Craddock, who the volume of reports about female sportspeople contributed 226, 224 and 214 articles, respectively, and teams as a proportion of all sports-related to the News Ltd stable of newspapers. coverage in the Australian media over the period 1 January–31 December 2008. • Of the 45 journalists who wrote about female sportspeople most often, 26 were women (57%). • There were 431 775 sports reports in total across all media, while the total number of reports about • While Channel Nine’s Today program with Lisa female sportspeople or teams was 38 094 (9% of Wilkinson and Karl Stefanovic had the highest coverage overall). number of general sports reports (333), Channel 7’s Sunrise with David Koch and Melissa Doyle • Of the coverage of female sportspeople or discussed women in sport most often (66 reports). teams, there were 36 087 press reports (94% of the total), 956 radio reports (3%), and 1051 • Kevin Bartlett on Victoria’s SEN was the radio television reports (3%). compere who mentioned female sportspeople most often (27 mentions); however SEN’s Andrew Maher, • Queensland publications had the highest number of Tim Watson and Billy Brownless mentioned women’s press reports on women in sport (11 161). However, sport in a higher proportion relative to their general circulation fi gures show that articles in New South sports-related coverage (26 mentions, or 14% of all Wales and Victoria had a higher potential readership. coverage on their program).

• Victorian radio stations had the largest number of Due to different timeframes, scope and methodologies, general sports-related radio reports, followed by the data in this section should not be compared to New South Wales. While New South Wales also data in other sections (see methodology section for trailed Victoria in the relative proportion of female more details). sports reports, the potential audiences were similar (5 848 800 and 5 555 000, respectively). Table 47: Media coverage of female and general sport, January to December 2008 • New South Wales had more than twice the number of general sports-related television reports (3404) Female sport General sport All sport compared to Victoria (1398). However, the difference Press reports 36 087 379 313 415 400 in women’s sports reports in the two states was Television reports 1 051 7 032 8 083 less pronounced (385 and 210, respectively). Radio reports 956 7 336 8 292

• Melbourne’s Herald Sun and Sydney’s The Daily Total 38 094 393 681 431 775 Telegraph published the highest number of female-related sports reports (2206 and 1992, respectively), followed by Adelaide’s The Advertiser, Share of voice The Canberra Times and Brisbane’s The Courier-Mail. Chart 89: Female sports coverage as a percentage of all • Of the fi ve leading radio stations, Triple M and sports coverage, press Victoria’s SEN broadcast the highest number of female-related sports reports (107 and 76, Female sport respectively). 9%

• Channel 7 had the largest volume of female-related sports reports (201), followed by Channel Ten (172) and Channel Nine (151). However, this sequence was reversed in general sports-related coverage.

General sport 91% SECTION FOUR 77

Chart 90: Female sports coverage as a percentage of all Media type sports coverage, radio Chart 92: Female sports coverage by media type Female sport 12% Television Radio 3% 3%

General sport 88% Press 94%

Chart 91: Female sports coverage as a percentage of all sports coverage, television

Female sport 13% Table 49: Volume of female sports coverage by media type Media type Volume Audience/Circulation Press 36 087 5 761 169 935 Radio 956 21 172 200 Television 1 051 77 265 212 Total 38 094 5 859 607 347

General sport 87%

Table 48: Volume of female sports coverage and all sports coverage by media type

Share of voice Press Radio Television Female sport 36 087 956 1 051 General sport 379 313 7 336 7 032 Total 415 400 8 292 8 083 78 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

State breakdown

Chart 93: Volume of press coverage of female sport by state

12 000 2 400 000 000

9 000 1 800 000 000 Circulation

6 000 1 200 000 000 Volume

3 000 600 000 000

0 0 Qld NSW Vic. SA WA ACT National NT Volume Circulation

Table 50: Volume of press coverage of female sport by state

State Volume Circulation Queensland 11 161 841 938 595 New South Wales 7 974 1 805 151 930 Victoria 7 156 1 683 860 162 South Australia 2 851 713 134 340 Western Australia 2 526 411 392 122 Australian Capital Territory 1 983 79 836 876 National 1 371 201 687 484 Northern Territory 1 065 24 168 426 Total 36 087 5 761 169 935 SECTION FOUR 79

Chart 94: Volume of radio coverage of female sport and general sport by state

3 000 60 000 000

2 500 50 000 000

2 000 40 000 000 Audience

1 500 30 000 000 Volume 1 000 20 000 000

500 10 000 000

0 0 Female sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale General sport General sport General sport General sport General sport General sport General sport General sport General sport Vic. NSW SA Qld TAS WA National ACT NT

Volume Audience

Table 51: Volume of radio coverage of female sport and general sport by state

State Sport type Volume Audience Victoria 2 485 43 811 000 General sport 2 222 38 256 000 Female sport 263 5 555 000 New South Wales 2 108 61 992 400 General sport 1 931 56 143 600 Female sport 177 5 848 800 South Australia 1 270 27 113 000 General sport 1 065 22 496 000 Female sport 205 4 617 000 Queensland 796 10 106 500 General sport 717 8 775 300 Female sport 79 1 331 200 Tasmania 538 4 469 500 General sport 489 4 038 500 Female sport 49 431 000 Western Australia 514 10 013 000 General sport 474 8 709 000 Female sport 40 1 304 000 National 378 5 860 400 General sport 295 4 692 500 Female sport 83 1 167 900 Australian Capital Territory 176 2 353 600 General sport 119 1 446 300 Female sport 57 907 300 Northern Territory 27 32 600 General sport 24 22 600 Female sport 3 10 000 Total 8 292 165 752 000 80 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 95: Volume of television coverage of female sport and general sport by state

3 500 350 000 000

3 000 300 000 000

2 500 250 000 000 Audience 2 000 200 000 000

Volume 1 500 150 000 000

1 000 100 000 000

500 50 000 000

0 0 Female sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale sportFemale General sport General sport General sport General sport General sport General sport General sport General sport General sport Vic. NSW SA Qld TAS WA National ACT NT

Volume Audience

Table 52: Volume of television coverage of female sport and general sport by state

State Sport type Volume Audience New South Wales 3 789 367 917 881 General sport 3 404 343 216 329 Female sport 385 24 701 552 Victoria 1 608 167 878 406 General sport 1 398 142 710 372 Female sport 210 25 168 034 Queensland 1 155 66 889 679 General sport 1 022 58 412 672 Female sport 133 8 477 007 Western Australia 432 39 106 564 General sport 340 31 209 022 Female sport 92 7 897 542 South Australia 321 31 440 511 General sport 247 23 640 428 Female sport 74 7 800 083 National* 292 N/A General sport 264 N/A Female sport 28 N/A Tasmania 216 5 740 410 General sport 184 4 921 563 Female sport 32 818 847 Australian Capital Territory 159 4 513 212 General sport 78 2 111 065

Female sport 81 2 402 147 * Denotes media outlets where all Northern Territory 111 N/A programming is uniform nationally. General sport 95 N/A National programs broadcast on state-based networks are Female sport 16 N/A represented in state totals. Total 8 083 683 486 663 N/A Figures unavailable SECTION FOUR 81

Leading media

Chart 96: Volume of coverage of female sport by leading newspaper

2 400 1 200 000 000

2 000 1 000 000 000

1 600 800 000 000 Circulation

1 200 600 000 000 Volume 800 400 000 000

400 200 000 000

0 0 Herald The Daily The The The The Gold The Sunday Geelong The The Sydney Sun Telegraph Advertiser Canberra Courier- Coast Mail Advertiser Australian Morning Times Mail Bulletin Herald Volume Circulation

Table 53: Volume of coverage of female sport by leading newspaper

Newspaper Volume Circulation Herald Sun 2 206 1 142 708 000 The Daily Telegraph 1 992 718 241 496 The Advertiser 1 758 483 159 930 The Canberra Times 1 756 66 194 176 The Courier-Mail 1 657 355 373 476 The Gold Coast Bulletin 1 337 54 978 777 The Sunday Mail 1 225 408 109 975 Geelong Advertiser 1 170 30 942 990 The Australian 1 160 154 256 800 The Sydney Morning Herald 1 019 216 741 300 82 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 97: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading radio station

800 40 000 000

600 30 000 000 Audience

400 20 000 000 Volume

200 10 000 000

0 0 General Female General Female General Female General Female General Female sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport

Triple M SEN Mix FM Sky Sports Radio SPORT 927

Volume Audience

Table 54: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading radio station

Station Sport type Volume Audience Triple M 827 32 658 000 General sport 720 28 779 000 Female sport 107 3 879 000 SEN 780 N/A General sport 704 N/A Female sport 76 N/A Mix FM 448 13 932 000 General sport 395 12 394 000 Female sport 53 1 538 000 Sky Sports Radio 435 N/A General sport 403 N/A Female sport 32 N/A SPORT 927 420 N/A General sport 392 N/A Female sport 28 N/A

N/A Figures unavailable SECTION FOUR 83

Chart 98: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading television station

1 800 180 000 000

1 600 160 000 000

1 400 140 000 000

120 000 000 1 200 Audience

1 000 100 000 000

800 80 000 000 Volume 600 60 000 000

400 40 000 000

200 20 000 000

0 0 sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport Female Female Female Female Female Female Female Female Female General General General General General General General General General General Channel Channel Channel Sky News NBN NBN SBSNBN ABC1 Fox Sports Nine Ten 7 Australia Newcastle Tamworth Central News Hunter Coast

Volume Audience

Table 55: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading television station Station Sport type Volume Audience Channel Nine 1 354 164 954 300 General sport 1 203 145 714 969 Female sport 151 19 239 331 Channel Ten 1 259 134 106 627 General sport 1 087 117 766 203 Female sport 172 16 340 424 Channel 7 1 166 192 559 074 General sport 965 160 498 662 Female sport 201 32 060 412 Sky News Australia 705 N/A General sport 646 N/A Female sport 59 N/A NBN Newcastle Hunter 241 18 351 056 General sport 204 15 660 264 Female sport 37 2 690 792 NBN Tamworth 223 7 017 274 General sport 207 6 579 396 Female sport 16 437 878 SBS 211 N/A General sport 189 N/A Female sport 22 N/A NBN Central Coast 187 N/A General sport 170 N/A Female sport 17 N/A ABC1 182 125 207 684 General sport 182 125 207 684 Fox Sports News 169 N/A General sport 142 N/A Female sport 27 N/A

N/A Figures unavailable 84 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Leading by-lines

Chart 99: Volume of leading by-lines relating to female sport by newspaper

250 50 000 000

200 40 000 000 Circulation 150 30 000 000

Volume 100 20 000 000

50 10 000 000

0 0 Perth) (Perth) The Daily The Daily Telegraph Telegraph Telegraph Telegraph Herald Sun Herald Sun The Sunday The Sunday The Sunday The Sunday Times ( Times The Australian The Advertiser The Advertiser The Advertiser The Courier-Mail The Courier-Mail The Courier-Mail The Sunday Mail The Sunday Mail The Sunday Mail The Sunday Sunday Herald Sun Sunday Herald Sun Sunday Amanda Lulham Warren Partland Robert Craddock

Volume Circulation

Table 56: Volume of leading by-lines relating to female sport by newspaper

By-line Newspaper Volume Circulation Amanda Lulham 226 91 597 160 The Daily Telegraph 136 49 036 568 Herald Sun 30 15 540 000 The Sunday Telegraph 27 17 600 544 The Courier-Mail 17 3 645 956 The Sunday Mail 7 2 332 057 The Sunday Times (Perth) 6 1 927 200 Sunday Herald Sun 2 1 240 000 The Advertiser 1 274 835 Warren Partland 224 64 185 209 The Advertiser 177 48 645 795 The Sunday Mail 46 15 324 946 The Courier-Mail 1 214 468 Robert Craddock 214 72 270 898 The Courier-Mail 77 16 514 036 Herald Sun 47 24 346 000 The Advertiser 33 9 069 555 The Daily Telegraph 27 9 735 201 The Sunday Mail 14 4 664 114 The Sunday Telegraph 6 3 911 232 The Sunday Times (Perth) 4 1 284 800 Sunday Herald Sun 4 2 480 000 The Australian 2 265 960 SECTION FOUR 85

Leading radio comperes

Chart 100: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading radio compere

500

400

300

Volume 200

100

0 Female General Female General Female General Female General sport sport sport sport sport sport sport sport Hungry for Sport Big Sport BreakfastMorning Glory Racing Central Kevin Bartlett Terry Kennedy and Michael Slater Andrew Maher, Tim Watson Steve Moran and Billy Brownless

Table 57: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading radio compere

Compere Program Sport type Volume Audience Hungry for Sport — SEN 414 N/A Kevin Bartlett Female sport 27 N/A General sport 387 N/A

Terry Kennedy Big Sport Breakfast — Sky Sports Radio 296 N/A and Michael Female sport 25 N/A Slater General sport 271 N/A

Andrew Maher, Morning Glory — SEN 184 N/A Tim Watson and Female sport 26 N/A Billy Brownless General sport 158 N/A Racing Central — SPORT 927 97 N/A Steve Moran Female sport 3 N/A General sport 94 N/A

N/A Figures unavailable 86 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Leading television comperes

Chart 101: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading television compere

350 35 000 000

280 28 000 000

210 21 000 000 Audience Volume 140 14 000 000

70 7 000 000

0 0 Female sport General sport Female sport General sport Female sport General sport Today Sunrise Ten News Lisa Wilkinson and Karl Stefanovic David Koch and Melissa Doyle Ron Wilson and Deborah Knight

Volume Audience

Table 58: Volume of coverage of female sport and general sport by leading television compere

Compere Program Sport type Volume Audience Today (Channel Nine) 362 19 246 424 Lisa Wilkinson and Female sport 29 1 546 535 Karl Stefanovic General sport 333 17 699 889 Sunrise (Channel 7) 287 24 844 064 David Koch and Female sport 66 5 400 644 Melissa Doyle General sport 221 19 443 420 Ten News 196 35 258 560 Ron Wilson and Female sport 13 2 376 261 Deborah Knight General sport 183 32 882 299 SECTION ONE

SECTION FIVE

Quantitative analysis of non-news television coverage January–December 2008 88 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Key fi ndings the size of the audiences (for example, golf had the second-highest duration but the eighth-highest share This section presents fi ndings from an analysis of more of audience, and rugby league had the sixth-highest than 53 984 hours of sports programming, broadcast duration but had the highest audience share). between 1 January and 31 December 2008 (the census of material) on channels Ten, Nine and 7; ABC1 and There were more viewers of female tennis coverage ABC2; SBS; and Fox Sports 1, 2 and 3 in the Sydney than of the larger proportion of male tennis coverage and Melbourne markets. All fi gures for national stations in Melbourne (Charts 116 and 117). Charts 118–121 ABC2, SBS and Fox Sports 1, 2 and 3 can be interpreted emphasise the small proportion of audiences watching as national. Fox Sports coverage, despite the lengthy durations on these stations. A comparison of Chart 117 to Chart 116 As seen in Chart 102, 86% of the total duration of clearly shows the discrepancies in coverage duration coverage was of male sport, while 73% of the audience versus audiences. For example, horseracing had the was also attributed to male sports coverage. The 26th-highest duration in Melbourne but the ninth-highest audience for male sport would have been larger were it audience reach. not for Olympics coverage (classifi ed as ‘indeterminate’), which attracted signifi cant audiences for a relatively Channel Nine Sydney was a sports ratings winner small volume of coverage. (for its broadcast of rugby league and cricket), with a higher audience reach than all the other free-to-air Sydney media had more coverage of each gender category, stations combined, across male, female and mixed except male sport, than Melbourne (Chart 103). The larger sport (Chart 119). amount of male sports coverage in the Melbourne market was due to a combination of different broadcast times More than one-third of the audience across the top for Australian rules football, as well as rugby league and ten sports in Melbourne watched AFL. This was more rugby union coverage. There was over 124 more hours of dominant than rugby league in Sydney (Charts 121 coverage of Australian rules football in Melbourne than and 119). in Sydney, and almost 32 more hours of rugby league Charts 122 and 123 show signifi cant discrepancies coverage and 55.5 more hours of rugby union coverage in across the board in female sports coverage compared Melbourne than in Sydney. to men’s on each platform. Tennis was the only female Melbourne generally had higher audiences across sport that would rank among the top ten durations for the board per hour of coverage (for all except the male sport (Charts 124 and 125). Interestingly, a higher ‘indeterminate’ sport gender type), as seen in Chart 104. proportion of the female sports coverage was on free- to-air television than male sports coverage, but female There were more men watching all-gender sport sport received less than 15% of the amount of coverage categories than women (including more men watching of male sport on free-to-air television and around 7% of female sport than women), as shown in Chart 111. male Fox Sports coverage.

In Sydney, the ABC (ABC1 and ABC2) was the only There were major differences in the duration of coverage network with more female sports than male sports attributed to the three football codes of Australian rules coverage, by duration. However, coverage across all football, rugby league and rugby union (Charts 124 networks, including the ABC, had larger total audiences and 125). for male sports coverage (Chart 112). This chart also shows the impact of local code rugby league As with durations, the audiences accumulated for tennis on audiences. were the only female sport audiences that would rank among the top ten for male sport. Behind women’s In Melbourne, all stations except ABC2 had more tennis on Channel 7, female lawn bowls on the ABC coverage of male sport than female, and had much larger attracted the highest audience for female sport during audiences for male sport (Chart 113). This chart also the year (Charts 126 and 127). shows the impact of local code AFL on audiences. Cricket was the second most prominent sport in both Tennis had the most diversifi ed gender split across the Sydney and Melbourne, and had the highest cumulative top sports, in terms of participants, although coverage audiences across the two markets (Charts 128 and was still predominantly of male athletes. There was a 129). Australian rules football had the second-highest more even split in audiences watching this sport audience across both markets, while rugby league was (Charts 114 and 115). the third-most prominent. The prominence of Australian rules football was due to its high Melbourne audience The dominance of male sports coverage by share fi gures (there were more viewers in Melbourne of of audience in the Sydney market is shown in Chart Australian rules football than of rugby league in Sydney 115. When compared to Chart 114 (which shows the and Melbourne combined). duration of air time devoted to coverage), it is easy to see discrepancies in the volume of coverage versus SECTION FIVE 89

Competitor comparison Chart 102 shows all coverage analysed from 2008, split across the sport gender types (that is, the gender that was the focus of the coverage).

Chart 102: Overall sports coverage by sport type

60 000:00:00 350 000

48 000:00:00 280 000

36 000:00:00 210 000 Audience

24 000:00:00 140 000 Duration (hh:mm:ss)

12 000:00:00 70 000

0:00:00 0 Male sport Female sport Indeterminate Mixed sport Duration 46 282:43:00 3 762:21:00 2 395:16:00 1 544:25:00 Audience 302 830 28 823 71 124 12 211

Charts 103 and 104 show all coverage analysed from the Sydney and Melbourne markets, respectively (durations and audiences of each market’s coverage).

Chart 103: Sports coverage by sport type, Sydney

60 000:00:00 350 000

48 000:00:00 280 000

36 000:00:00 210 000 Audience

24 000:00:00 140 000 Duration (hh:mm:ss)

12 000:00:00 70 000

0:00:00 0 Male sport Female sport Indeterminate Mixed sport Duration 23 123:10:00 1 881:22:00 1 203:23:00 772:55:00 Audience 150 219 13 423 35 777 5 298 90 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 104: Sports coverage by sport type, Melbourne

60 000:00:00 350 000

48 000:00:00 280 000

36 000:00:00 210 000 Audience

24 000:00:00 140 000 Duration (hh:mm:ss)

12 000:00:00 70 000

0:00:00 0 Male sport Female sport Indeterminate Mixed sport Duration 23 159:33:00 1 880:59:00 1 191:53:00 771:30:00 Audience 152 611 15 400 35 347 6 913

Share of voice Chart 105 shows the proportion of duration, by sport Chart 106 shows the proportion of audience, by sport gender type, for coverage in both Sydney and Melbourne. gender type, in both Sydney and Melbourne.

Chart 105: Duration of sports coverage by sport type, Chart 106: Audience by sport type, Sydney and Melbourne Sydney and Melbourne

Mixed sport Mixed sport 3% 3% Indeterminate Female sport 4% 7% Female sport 7%

Indeterminate 17%

Male sport Male sport 86% 73% SECTION FIVE 91

Chart 107 shows a breakdown of duration, by sport Chart 109 shows a breakdown of audience, by sport gender type, of coverage in Sydney. gender type, in Sydney.

Chart 107: Duration of sports coverage by sport type, Sydney Chart 109: Audience by sport type, Sydney

Mixed sport Mixed sport 3% 3% Indeterminate Female sport 4% 7% Female sport 7%

Indeterminate 17%

Male sport Male sport 86% 73%

Chart 108 shows a breakdown of duration, by sport Chart 110 shows a breakdown of audience, by sport gender type, of coverage in Melbourne. gender type, in Melbourne.

Chart 108: Duration of sports coverage by sport type, Chart 110: Audience by sport type, Melbourne Melbourne

Mixed sport Mixed sport Indeterminate 3% 3% 4% Female sport 7% Female sport 7%

Indeterminate 17%

Male sport Male sport 86% 73% 92 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Audience demographics Chart 111 shows the proportion of male and female viewers of each of the different sport gender types overall.

Chart 111: Male and female audience by sport type

100%

80% 36.9% 49.8% 48.9%

60%

Audience 40% 63.1% 50.2% 51.1% 20%

0% Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Male viewers Female viewers

Leading stations Charts 112 and 113 show the breakdown of coverage of each sport gender type (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) and the audience across each station in Sydney and Melbourne. Fox Sports 1, 2 and 3, as well as SBS and ABC2 coverage was the same in both markets.

Chart 112: Leading station sports coverage by sport type, Sydney

33 600:00:00 70 000

28 800:00:00 60 000

24 000:00:00 50 000

19 200:00:00 40 000 Audience

14 400:00:00 30 000

Duration (hh:mm:ss) 9 600:00:00 20 000

4 800:00:00 10 000

0:00:00 0 Fox Sports Fox Sports Fox Sports Channel Channel Channel SBS ABC1 ABC2 3 2 1 Nine 7 Ten Mixed sport duration 173:11:00 229:57:00 213:25:00 61:51:00 53:28:00 7:31:00 5:14:00 28:18:00 Female sport duration 808:38:00 344:29:00 348:29:00 36:58:00 88:57:00 22:18:00 97:01:00 110:30:00 24:02:00 Male sport duration 6 845:16:00 6 861:41:00 6 862:49:00 677:02:00 552:25:00 654:02:00 566:45:00 103:10:00 Mixed sport audience 123 160 196 1 320 2 447 268 216 568 Female sport audience 864 316 376 691 5 477 379 3 268 2 017 35 Male sport audience 9 882 23 230 11 370 62 283 17 490 10 369 12 852 2 743 SECTION FIVE 93

Chart 113: Leading station sports coverage by sport type, Melbourne

33 600:00:00 70 000

28 800:00:00 60 000

24 000:00:00 50 000

19 200:00:00 40 000 Audience

14 400:00:00 30 000

Duration (hh:mm:ss) 9 600:00:00 20 000

4 800:00:00 10 000

0:00:00 0 Fox Sports Fox Sports Fox Sports Channel Channel Channel SBS ABC1 ABC2 3 2 1 Nine 7 Ten Mixed sport duration 173:11:00 229:57:00 213:25:00 61:56:00 51:58:00 7:31:00 5:14:00 28:18:00 Female sport duration 808:38:00 344:29:00 348:29:00 37:34:00 88:56:00 22:18:00 97:01:00 109:32:00 24:02:00 Male sport duration 6 845:16:00 6 861:41:00 6 862:49:00 641:48:00 563:21:00 676:29:00 566:45:00 141:24:00 Mixed sport audience 124 134 158 1 312 4 015 288 204 678 Female sport audience 793 325 591 587 7 514 408 3 094 2 022 66 Male sport audience 6 189 12 449 18 283 35 590 37 562 27 820 11 482 3 236

Leading sports by competitor Chart 114 shows the top ten sports by duration for each sport gender type (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Sydney market. See Charts 122 and 124 for a breakdown by solely female sports or solely male sports coverage in Sydney.

Chart 114: Duration of top ten sports by sport type, Sydney

Duration (hh:mm:ss) 0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Cricket 3 408:27:00

Golf 2 614:45:00 473:54:00

Tennis 2 077:24:00 733:30:00

Football (soccer) 2 665:13:00

Motor sports 2 308:34:00

Rugby league 2 029:32:00

Australian rules football 1 797:09:00

Rugby union 1 435:18:00

Poker 659:25:00

Basketball 542:45:00

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport 94 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Table 59: Duration of top ten sports by sport type, Sydney

Sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Total Cricket 3 408:27:00 0:57:00 3 409:24:00 Golf 2 614:45:00 473:54:00 3:00:00 3 091:39:00 Tennis 2 077:24:00 733:30:00 119:35:00 2 930:29:00 Football (soccer) 2 665:13:00 46:57:00 2 712:10:00 Motor sports 2 308:34:00 26:24:00 2 334:58:00 Rugby league 2 029:32:00 2 029:32:00 Australian rules football 1 797:09:00 1 797:09:00 Rugby union 1 435:18:00 1 435:18:00 Poker 659:25:00 16:55:00 676:20:00 Basketball 542:45:00 67:58:00 610:43:00 Total 19 538:32:00 1 323:16:00 165:54:00 21 027:42:00

Chart 115 shows the top ten sports by audience for each sport gender type (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Sydney market. See Charts 126 and 128 for a breakdown by solely female sports or male sports coverage in Sydney.

Chart 115: Audience for top ten sports by sport type, Sydney

Audience 0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Rugby league 44 964 44 964

Cricket 36 729 36 802

Football (soccer) 13 891 14 800

Motor sports 13 782 13 993

Tennis 6 7006 369 13 682

Rugby union 8 149 8 149

Australian rules football 7 808 7 808

Golf 4 126 5 196

Cycling 3 830 4 116

Lawn bowls 2 796

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Table 60: Audience for top ten sports by sport type, Sydney

Sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Total Rugby league 44 964 44 964 Cricket 36 729 73 36 802 Football (soccer) 13 891 909 14 800 Motor sports 13 782 211 13 993 Tennis 6 700 6 369 613 13 682 Rugby union 8 149 8 149 Australian rules football 7 808 7 808 Golf 4 126 1 020 50 5 196 Cycling 3 830 286 4 116 Lawn bowls 1 566 1 230 2 796 Total 141 545 9 887 874 152 306 SECTION FIVE 95

Chart 116 shows the top ten sports by duration for each sport gender type (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Melbourne market. See Charts 123 and 125 for a breakdown by solely female sports or male sports coverage in Melbourne.

Chart 116: Duration of top ten sports by sport type, Melbourne

Duration (hh:mm:ss) 0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Cricket 3 409:37:00

Golf 2 615:20:00 473:54:00

Tennis 2 077:22:00 734:05:00

Football (soccer) 2 665:13:00

Motor sports 2 305:57:00

Rugby league 1 997:34:00

Australian rules football 1 921:21:00

Rugby union 1 379:44:00

Poker 659:25:00

Basketball 541:45:00

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Table 61: Duration of top ten sports by sport type, Melbourne

Sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Total Cricket 3 409:37:00 0:57:00 3 410:34:00 Golf 2 615:20:00 473:54:00 3:00:00 3 092:14:00 Tennis 2 077:22:00 734:05:00 119:35:00 2 931:02:00 Football (soccer) 2 665:13:00 46:57:00 2 712:10:00 Motor sports 2 305:57:00 26:27:00 2 332:24:00 Rugby league 1 997:34:00 1 997:34:00 Australian rules football 1 921:21:00 1 921:21:00 Rugby union 1 379:44:00 1 379:44:00 Poker 659:25:00 16:55:00 676:20:00 Basketball 541:45:00 67:58:00 609:43:00 Total 19 573:18:00 1 323:51:00 165:57:00 21 063:06:00 96 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 117 shows the top ten sports by audience for each sport gender type (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Melbourne market. See Charts 127 and 129 for a breakdown by solely female sports or solely male sports coverage in Melbourne.

Chart 117: Audience for top ten sports by sport type, Melbourne

Audience 0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Australian rules football 52 925 52 925

Cricket 39 819 39 890

Tennis 7 7668 299 16 757

Motor sports 14 938 15 167

Football (soccer) 8 689 9 455

Rugby league 6 878 6 878

Golf 5 164 6 571

Cycling 4 265 4 549

Horseracing 3 637 3 637

Lawn bowls 2 772

■ Male sport ■ Female sport ■ Mixed sport

Table 62: Audience for top ten sports by sport type, Melbourne

Sport Male sport Female sport Mixed sport Total Australian rules football 52 925 52 925 Cricket 39 819 71 39 890 Tennis 7 766 8 299 692 16 757 Motor sports 14 938 229 15 167 Football (soccer) 8 689 766 9 455 Rugby league 6 878 6 878 Golf 5 164 1 356 51 6 571 Cycling 4 265 284 4 549 Horseracing 3 637 3 637 Lawn bowls 1 635 1 137 2 772 Total 142 079 11 913 4 609 158 601 SECTION FIVE 97

Leading sports by station Chart 118 shows the top ten sports by duration on each Chart 119 shows the top ten sports by audience for station (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage each station (male, female and mixed gender sports only) in the Sydney market (see Table 63). See Charts coverage only) in the Sydney market (see Table 64). 122 and 124 for a breakdown by solely female sports or See Charts 126 and 128 for a breakdown by solely solely male sports coverage in Sydney. female sports or solely male sports coverage in Sydney.

Chart 118: Duration of top ten sports by television station, Sydney

Duration (hh:mm:ss) 0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Cricket 609:25:00 992:26:00 1 259:42:00 312:13:00

Golf 1 620:59:00 672:23:00 616:44:00

Tennis 261:03:00 422:13:00 1 886:26:00

Football (soccer) 1 355:01:00 553:41:00 530:52:00

Motor sports 595:33:00 626:30:00 680:59:00

Rugby league 1 468:16:00

Australian rules football 1 171:14:00

Rugby union 286:28:00 485:40:00 565:24:00

Poker

Basketball

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 2 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten

Chart 119: Audience for top ten sports by television station, Sydney

Audience 0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Rugby league 11 750 32 362 44 964

Cricket 4 851 26 369 2 543 36 802

Football (soccer) 5 1022 390 4 854 14 800

Motor sports 6 1602 882 13 993

Tennis 10 214 13 682

Rugby union 2 5392 530 8 149

Australian rules football 2 9913 623 7 808

Golf 5 196

Cycling 3 706 4 116

Lawn bowls 2 709 2 796

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 2 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten 98 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Chart 120 shows the top ten sports by duration for each Chart 121 shows the top ten sports by audience for each station (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage station (male, female and mixed gender sports coverage only) in the Melbourne market (see Table 65). See only) in the Melbourne market (see Table 66). See Charts Charts 123 and 125 for a breakdown by solely female 127 and 129 for a breakdown by solely female sports or sports or solely male sports coverage in Melbourne. solely male sports coverage in Melbourne.

Chart 120: Duration of top ten sports by television station, Melbourne

Duration (hh:mm:ss) 0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Cricket 609:25:00 992:26:00 1 259:42:00 312:13:00

Golf 1 620:59:00 672:23:00 616:44:00

Tennis 261:03:00 422:13:00 1 886:26:00

Football (soccer) 1 355:01:00 553:41:00 530:52:00

Motor sports 595:33:00 626:30:00 680:59:00

Rugby league 1 468:16:00

Australian rules football 1 171:14:00

Rugby union 286:28:00 485:40:00 565:24:00

Poker

Basketball

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 2 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten

Chart 121: Audience for top ten sports by television station, Melbourne

Audience 0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Australian rules football 23 223 8 76018 886 52 925

Cricket 5 629 27 888 2 799 39 890

Tennis 13 779 16 757

Motor sports 6 1314 622 15 167

Football (soccer) 3 3593 014 9 455

Rugby league 4 448 6 878

Golf 2 560 6 571

Cycling 4 093 4 549

Horseracing 2 945 3 637

Lawn bowls 2 617 2 772

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 2 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten SECTION FIVE 99

Charts 122 and 123 show the top ten female sports by duration in the Sydney and Melbourne markets (see tables 67 and 68, respectively).

Chart 122: Duration of top ten female sports by television station, Sydney

Duration (hh:mm:ss) 0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Tennis 476:25:00

Golf

Netball

Lawn bowls

Basketball

Football (soccer)

Field hockey

Beach volleyball

Gymnastics

Volleyball

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 2 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten

Chart 123: Duration of top ten female sports by television station, Melbourne

Duration (hh:mm:ss) 0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Tennis 476:25:00

Golf

Netball

Lawn bowls

Basketball

Football (soccer)

Field hockey

Beach volleyball

Gymnastics

Volleyball

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten 100 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Charts 124 and 125 show the top ten male sports by duration in the Sydney and Melbourne markets (see tables 69 and 70, respectively).

Chart 124: Duration of top ten male sports by television station, Sydney

Duration (hh:mm:ss) 0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Cricket 609:25:00 992:26:00 1 259:42:00 311:16:00

Football (soccer) 1 355:01:00 552:46:00 530:52:00

Golf 1 381:13:00 561:19:00 520:31:00

Motor sports 586:33:00 622:28:00 673:33:00

Tennis 292:01:00 1 386:32:00

Rugby league 1 468:16:00

Australian rules football 1 171:14:00

Rugby union 286:28:00 485:40:00 565:24:00

Poker

Baseball 322:01:00

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 2 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten

Chart 125: Duration of top ten male sports by television station, Melbourne

Duration (hh:mm:ss) 0:00:00 960:00:00 1 920:00:00 2 880:00:00 3 840:00:00

Cricket 609:25:00 992:26:00 1 259:42:00 311:42:00

Football (soccer) 1 355:01:00 552:46:00 530:52:00

Golf 1 381:13:00 561:19:00 520:31:00

Motor sports 586:33:00 622:28:00 673:33:00

Tennis 292:01:00 1 386:32:00

Rugby league 1 468:16:00

Australian rules football 1 171:14:00

Rugby union 286:28:00 485:40:00 565:24:00

Poker

Baseball 322:01:00

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 2 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten SECTION FIVE 101

Charts 126 and 127 show the top ten female sports by audience in the Sydney and Melbourne markets (see tables 71 and 72, respectively).

Chart 126: Audience for top ten female sports by television station, Sydney

Audience 0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Tennis 5 477 6 369

Lawn bowls 1 230

Golf 1 020

Football (soccer) 909

Netball 828

Basketball 641

Beach volleyball 396

Handball 371

Cycling 286

Volleyball 282

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 2 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten

Chart 127: Audience for top ten female sports by television station, Melbourne

Audience 0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Tennis 7 514 8 299

Golf 1 356

Lawn bowls 1 137

Netball 812

Football (soccer) 766

Basketball 655

Beach Volleyball 403

Handball 379

Volleyball 316

Cycling 284

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 2 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten 102 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Charts 128 and 129 show the top ten male sports by audience in the Sydney and Melbourne markets (see tables 73 and 74, respectively).

Chart 128: Audience for top ten male sports by television station, Sydney

Audience 0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Rugby league 11 750 32 362 44 964

Cricket 4 851 26 296 2 543 36 729

Football (soccer) 5 102 2 390 1 913 4 154 13 891

Motor sports 5 9902 882 13 782

Rugby union 2 5392 530 8 149

Australian rules football 2 9913 623 7 808

Tennis 4 737 6 700

Golf 1 405 4 126

Cycling 3 420 3 830

Lawn bowls 1 566

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 2 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten

Chart 129: Audience for top ten male sports by television station, Melbourne

Audience 0 10 000 20 000 30 000 40 000 50 000 60 000

Australian rules football 23 223 8 76018 886 52 925

Cricket 5 629 27 817 2 799 39 819

Motor sports 5 9214 622 14 938

Football (soccer) 3 359 2 430 8 689

Tennis 6 265 7 766

Rugby league 2 135 4 448 6 878

Golf 5 164

Cycling 3 809 4 265

Rugby union 1 698

Lawn bowls 1 635

■ ABC1 ■ ABC2 ■ Channel 7 ■ Fox Sports 1 ■ Fox Sports 2 ■ Fox Sports 3 ■ SBS ■ Channel Nine ■ Channel Ten SECTION FIVE 103 SportCricketGolfTennisFootball (soccer)Motor sports ABC1union leagueRugby 0:57:00 rules Australian football 19:43:00 17:56:00 Rugby 28:18:00 ABC2Poker 52:08:00Basketball 620:59:00672:23:00 Channel 7 Total 43:28:00 Sports Fox 1 1 2:14:00 24:28:00 Sports Fox 2 233:24:00 215:04:00236:06:00 616:44:00 29:58:00 Sport 1 355:01:00 Sports Fox 3 286:28:00 leagueRugby 261:03:00 609:25:00 149:00:00 182:54:00 152:21:00Cricket 24:02:00 553:41:00 485:40:00 SBSFootball (soccer) 422:13:00 1 171:14:00 225:10:00 992:26:00 21:49:00 24:02:00 595:33:00Motor sports 530:52:00 565:24:00 1 886:26:00 1 259:42:00Tennis091:39:00 134:29:00 Channel Nine676:20:00 ABC1 638:49:00 98:20:00 626:30:00 139:44:00 250:39:00 unionRugby bowls709Ten Channel 103:45:00 209 153:28:00 2:45:00 rules Australian football 6 358:16:00 3 680:59:00 227:56:00 42Golf 1 468:16:00 ABC2 5 819:40:00 Total Cycling 96:20:00435:18:00 105:54:00 151:50:00 6 307:20:00 21:10:00 236:45:00 Lawn 1 1776 2 312:13:00 Channel 7 568Total 34:56:00 1 25:16:00 384:34:00 234:41:00 Sports Fox 1 138:45:00 698:01:00 11:57:00 56 Sports Fox 2 332 3 409:24:00 306 2 930:29:00 2 334:58:00 2 712:10:00 Sports Fox 3 648:00:00 220:46:00 6 160796 5 011 155:04:00 5 102 2 1027:42:00 2 991 2 539 251 25 10 214 610:43:00 SBS 1 797:09:00 1 530 586 2 390 11 750 1 062 Channel Nine 3572 0 150 2 029:32:00 Ten Channel 630 4 851 1 913 846 601 22 866 1 181 83 Total 210 1 697 1 467 4 854 10 781 646 2 530 1 036 49 40 778 22 174 1 181 32 362 87 29 673 9 106 26 369 1 692 1 417 166 9 828 2 543 2 882 44 964 14 800 62 092 3 706 36 802 13 993 365 3 623 252 10 448 13 682 8 149 7 808 152 306 860 175 5 196 4 116 Table 63: Duration of top ten sports by television station, Sydney 63: Duration of top ten sports station, television by Table Sydney for top ten sports station, Audience television by 64: Table 104 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media 692 3 637 Sport rules Australian footballCricket 1 674TennisMotor sportsFootball (soccer) ABC1 leagueRugby Golf945 25Cycling ABC2 182 678Horseracing 23 223 Channel 7 8 760 Sports Fox 1 423 Sports Fox 2 2 13 779 182 Sports Fox 3 210 6 131 SBS 193 200 3 359 2 060 561 Channel Nine 737Ten Channel 1 569 5 629 141 141 536 2 560 Total 1 121 1 489 745 2 135 554 56 832 3 014 154 60 1 210 18 886 32 741 27 888 1 161 1 553 52 925 130 2 799 4 622 4 448 4 093 39 890 15 167 210 16 757 9 455 1 068 6 878 238 6 571 4 549 Lawn bowlsLawn Total 2 617 5 599 0 47 025 17 723 33 11 157 101 5 155 21 8 377 35 952 27 613 158 601 2 772 SportCricketGolfTennisFootball (soccer)Motor sports ABC1 leagueRugby 0:57:00 rules 19:43:00Australian football 17:56:00 unionRugby 28:18:00 ABC2 90:22:00Poker Basketball Channel 7Total Sports Fox 1 2:14:00 43:30:00 Sports Fox 2 233:24:00 29:58:00 195:32:00 1 355:01:00 1 620:59:00 Sports Fox 3 261:03:00 215:04:00 609:25:00 187:14:00 1 171:14:00 24:02:00 152:34:00 553:41:00 672:23:00 422:13:00 236:06:00 992:26:00 SBS 134:29:00 24:02:00 595:33:00 530:52:00 616:44:00 1 886:26:00 1 259:42:00 225:10:00 153:28:00 21:02:00 Channel Nine 648:16:00 626:30:00 250:39:00 103:45:00Ten Channel 6 358:16:00 2:45:00 286:28:00 680:59:00 139:44:00 1 468:16:00 5 819:40:00 485:40:00 Total 96:53:00 105:54:00 227:56:00 6 307:20:00 236:45:00 312:39:00 21:51:00 565:24:00 151:50:00 384:34:00 32:09:00 235:25:00 98:51:00 138:45:00 663:17:00 25:16:00 3 410:34:00 3 092:14:00 2 931:02:00 2 332:24:00 176:16:00 670:27:00 2 712:10:00 10:57:00 188:48:00 21 063:06:00 1 921:21:00 676:20:00 21:10:00 1 997:34:00 609:43:00 1 379:44:00 Table 65: Duration of top ten sports by television station, Melbourne 65: Duration of top ten sports station, television by Table Melbourne for top ten sports station, Audience television by 66: Table SECTION FIVE 105 SportbowlsTennisGolf(soccer)19:43:00Netballhockey Lawn volleyball 42:53:00Basketball ABC1Football 88:57:0017:55:00Field 6:00:00 17:56:005:31:000:55:00 36:03:00 Beach 41:45:00 ABC2 47:46:00 Gymnastics 29:58:00238:46:00111:04:00 11:45:00 26:19:00 2:11:00 71:39:00Volleyball 91:47:00 15:56:00 Channel 7Total 24:02:00 10:56:00 178:16:0046:57:00 14:43:00 476:25:00 Sports Fox 1124:30:00 6:52:00 95:13:00 Sports Fox 2 2:04:0012:18:0034:36:00 Sport14:18:00 7:27:00bowls 2:00:00 Sports Fox 3Tennis 14:09:00 0:55:00 110:30:00 298:16:00 30:45:00 733:30:00 Golf(soccer)19:43:0014:18:00 29:52:00 Netballhockey SBS 1:28:00 10:00:00 24:02:00 Lawn volleyball 41:55:00 2:00:00Basketball ABC1 473:54:00 Channel Nine22:29:00 88:57:00Football 88:56:0017:55:00 9:58:00Ten Channel Field 6:00:00 17:56:005:31:000:55:00 348:00:00 36:03:00 Beach 41:45:00 ABC2 47:46:00 Gymnastics Total 29:58:00238:46:00111:04:00 11:45:00 343:59:00 26:19:00 2:11:00 71:39:00Volleyball 91:47:00 15:56:00 Channel 7Total 807:38:00 24:02:00 10:56:0067:58:00 178:16:00 46:57:00 14:43:00 476:25:00 Sports Fox 1123:32:00 6:52:00 95:13:00 61:34:00 Sports Fox 2 2:04:0012:18:0035:12:00 14:18:00 7:27:00 2:00:00 Sports Fox 3 14:09:00 35:31:00 0:55:00 109:32:00 298:16:00 30:45:00 734:05:00 14:18:00 29:52:00 22:18:00 SBS 1:28:00 10:00:00 24:02:00 2:00:00 1 842:29:00 473:54:00 Channel Nine22:29:00 88:56:00 9:58:00Ten Channel 348:00:00 Total 343:59:00 807:38:0067:58:00 61:34:00 36:07:00 22:18:00 1 842:06:00 Table 67: Duration of top ten female sports by television station, Sydney 67: Duration of top ten female sports station, television by Table Melbourne 68: Duration of top ten female sports station, television by Table 106 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media SportCricketFootball (soccer)GolfMotor sportsTennis ABC1union leagueRugby 0:57:00 rules Australian football Rugby ABC2Poker 52:08:00Baseball Channel 7381:13:00561:19:00Total 43:28:00 609:25:00 Sports Fox 1 2:14:00259:42:00 1 24:28:00 992:26:00 Sports Fox 2209:04:00234:06:00 Sport 1 355:01:0075:26:00 520:31:00 1 286:28:00 Sports Fox 3 146:25:00Cricket 182:54:00 53:05:00 552:46:00Football (soccer) 205:19:00 311:16:00 485:40:00 586:33:00Golf 144:27:00 SBS 1 171:14:00 216:15:00 530:52:00 322:01:00Motor sports 19:54:00408:27:00 union 0:00:00 234:41:00 565:24:00 622:28:00 Tennis 189:55:00 134:29:00659:25:00 ABC1 Channel Nine614:45:00 224:20:00 leagueRugby 3 0:57:00 543:56:00 88:20:00 1:53:00 673:33:00 103:45:00Ten Channel 292:01:00 153:28:00 rules Australian football 5 968:04:00 2 Rugby 21:02:00 1 468:16:00 ABC2 1 386:32:00 105:54:00604:39:00 90:22:00 5 548:50:00Poker Total 435:18:00 286:28:00 21:10:00 236:45:00Baseball 5 865:03:00 34:56:00 Channel 7 2:45:00Total 1 485:40:00 609:25:00 334:52:00 138:45:00 Sports Fox 1 61:44:00 2:14:00 259:42:00 379:44:00 565:24:00 992:26:00 Sports Fox 2 2 308:34:00 209:04:00234:06:00 648:36:00 195:32:00 1 355:01:00 75:26:00 2 665:13:00 1 Sports Fox 3 146:35:00 220:46:00 21:10:001 1 171:14:00 638:00:00 91:19:00 43:30:00 552:46:00 205:19:00 155:04:00 311:42:00 586:33:00 19 600:26:00 144:28:00 SBS 216:15:00 1 381:13:00 134:29:00 1 797:09:00 530:52:00 2 077:24:00 322:01:00409:37:00 0:00:00 235:25:00 622:28:00 189:55:00 561:19:00 153:28:00659:25:00 Channel Nine 224:20:00 3 553:21:00 1:53:00 673:33:00 103:45:00 2 029:32:00 Ten Channel 292:01:00 520:31:00 5 968:04:00 1 468:16:00 1 386:32:00 105:54:00604:39:00 5 548:50:00 Total 236:45:00 5 865:03:00 32:09:00 2:45:00 334:52:00 138:45:00 61:41:00 19:56:00 2 305:57:00 614:16:00 176:16:00 2 665:13:00 88:51:00 188:48:00 660:27:00 1 921:21:00 2 615:20:00 19 636:12:00 2 077:22:00 1 997:34:00 Table 69: Duration of top ten male sports by television station, Sydney 69: Duration of top ten male sports station, television by Table Melbourne 70: Duration of top ten male sports station, television by Table SECTION FIVE 107 371286282 371 286 282 584379316284 766 379 316 284 SportTennis bowlsLawn GolfFootball (soccer)Netball ABC1Basketball 1 185 Beach volleyball 209 ABC2Handball 306 Channel 7 317 55 Sports Fox 1 5 477 35 Sports Fox 2 78 Sports Fox 3 16 4 SBS 470 291 Channel Nine 48 27 1Ten Channel 3 0 154 Total 271 14 89 225 700 10 557 828 288 383 26 6 369 154 1 230 1 020 909 641 396 CyclingVolleyballTotal 2 017 35 5 477 370 307 854 2 310 583 379 12 332 SportTennisGolf bowlsLawn NetballFootball (soccer) ABC1 1 080 ABC2 423 182 Channel 7 68 Sports Fox 1 7 514 76 Sports Fox 2 Sports Fox 3 414 23 SBS 14 470 Channel Nine 34Ten Channel 32 178 Total 222 11 129 254 812 506 2 154 8 299 1 356 1 137 BasketballBeach volleyballHandballVolleyballCycling 337Total 66 2 022 66 7 514 7 2 584 320 1 4 781 244 397 2 204 508 408 14 407 655 403 Table 71: Audience for top ten female sports by television station, Sydney for top ten female sports station, Audience television by 71: Table Melbourne for top ten female sports station, Audience television by 72: Table 108 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media Sport rules Australian footballCricket 1 674Motor sportsFootball (soccer)Tennis ABC1 leagueRugby Golf 25Cycling ABC2 unionRugby 23 223 bowlsLawn Channel 7 Total 8 760 Sports Fox 1 Sports Fox 2 1 537 5 921 Sports Fox 3 182 210 3 236 SBS 551 6 265 3 359 200 2 060 Channel Nine 0 737 1 569Ten Channel 527 165 349 5 629 141 36 705 Total 2 090 1 121 1 489 554 105 198 2 135 17 399 56 19 2 430 654 1 210 516 394 11 296 154 18 886 32 69 1 553 612 5 265 27 817 479 60 52 925 130 10 4 622 7 509 2 799 655 4 448 3 809 14 938 34 630 39 819 157 8 689 27 737 914 143 777 7 766 6 878 278 238 5 164 1 698 4 265 1 635 Sport leagueRugby CricketFootball (soccer)Motor sports unionRugby ABC1 rules Australian footballTennis 42Golf ABC2 Cycling 1 177 bowlsLawn Channel 7Total Sports Fox 1 Sports Fox 2 1 524 332 Sports Fox 3 2 991 2 539 5 990 2 743 251 5 102 SBS 1 062 1 530 357 573 11 750 Channel Nine 2 390 4 737 0Ten Channel 4 851 1 181 630 83 840 601 17 219 1 913 115 Total 1 467 2 530 1 405 10 437 49 624 4 154 2 145 40 21 922 624 1 181 32 362 29 756 29 8 699 26 296 1 692 582 11 87 166 8 842 2 543 2 882 44 964 365 61 389 3 420 36 729 3 623 13 891 860 13 782 179 10 294 8 149 7 808 141 545 706 175 6 700 4 126 3 830 1 566 Table 73: Audience for top ten male sports by television station, Sydney for top ten male sports station, Audience television by 73: Table Melbourne for top ten male sports station, Audience television by 74: Table APPENDIX A 109

Appendix A: CARMA® methodology

Media Monitors uses the CARMA® media content From this multivariate analysis, an aggregate score is analysis methodology, which is internationally derived and presented on a 0–100 scale (in which 50 is recognised as one of the most sophisticated and neutral) to provide a sophisticated overall rating of the rigorous commercial systems available. CARMA® favourability or otherwise of each article, each media, executives are foremost specialists in media each source and each writer for the client. Average research and analysis. favourability is also calculated for issues, media, writers and sources, providing valuable data for identifying Media Monitors analyses media coverage of trends and for comparing with benchmarks or previous companies, organisations, products, events, data. This aggregate score is called the CARMA® campaigns, trends and issues quantitatively and, Favourability Rating. most importantly, qualitatively. The CARMA® Favourability Rating is more than a positive Quantitative analysis is relatively straightforward. or negative description, which is the basis of some However, in addition to simply counting the total simplistic (uni-variate) media analysis systems. number of articles, column centimetres/inches or It provides a precise overall qualitative rating that minutes of air time, Media Monitors is able to calculate refl ects the likely impact of coverage. the total impressions generated (the total circulation or audience reached by media coverage). Also, where Quality control to ensure rigour and reliability of analysis competitors are analysed, Media Monitors can report is achieved in three key ways: editorial ‘share of voice’. • most of the variables analysed by Media Monitors Media Monitors analyses media content qualitatively, — such as media name, page number, positioning, taking into account multiple key variables that sources’ names, etc. — are objective criteria determine the impact of media coverage. These include: • ‘issues’ and ‘messages’ (somewhat more • the media in which articles appear (particularly subjective) are identifi ed by either exact whether they reach key target audiences) word or phrase matching, or presence of acceptable synonyms. A list of acceptable synonyms and • positioning (front page, front of business section, etc.) coding instructions is provided to analysts, in • prominence (size or length of articles, headline Coding Guidelines, to maintain consistency and mentions, photo, etc.) rigour (for example, ‘innovator’ can equal ‘cutting- edge products’, ‘ahead of competitors’ or ‘fi rst to • issues discussed market’)

• messages conveyed in articles (positive and • Media Monitors uses multiple coders on all negative) projects to minimise individual subjectivity. • sources quoted (favourable and unfavourable)

• other textual and contextual factors, such as tone, headline, photos, etc. 110 Towards a Level Playing Field: sport and gender in Australian media

Interpretation of CARMA® ratings

Chart 130

100 No news or current affairs 95 reporting can be 100. This is 90 Highly favourable a perfect advertisement. 85 News rarely exceeds 80. 80 75 66–75 = very favourable coverage. 70 56–65 quite favourable; positively 65 Moderately favourable promoting you. 60 51–55 = common range for news 55 Slightly favourable with little or no crticism. 50 Slightly unfavourable 49–45 = some criticism; 45 needs balance. 40 Moderately favourable 44–30 = quite damaging; 35 needs to be addressed. 30 News is rarely below 30. 25 This indicates biased reporting 20 failing to give balancing points 15 Highly unfavourable of view. 10 No news should be in this range. 5 This is litigious. 0 REFERENCES 111

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